Lamentations 3:40–47

⁵Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

²³Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

²⁴And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

¹²¶ Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

¹³And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

⁷Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

⁴Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

⁵⁹I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.

⁵Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.

⁶Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

⁷¶ Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.

⁸Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.

⁹Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.

¹COME, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.

¹O ISRAEL, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.

²Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.

³Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.

²⁸But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.

⁹For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.

³¹For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

⁶So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.

²⁸Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

³⁰When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;

³Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.

⁴Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith the Lord.

²⁰But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judæa, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.

⁶Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.

¹³If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him;

¹⁴If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.

¹⁵For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear:

³¹Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more:

³²That which I see not teach thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.

¹²And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.

¹³For because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.

¹UNTO thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

²Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.

⁶I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.

⁷Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

⁸Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.

⁴Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

⁸So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.

²Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

⁴Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.

⁷¶ How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.

⁸They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.

⁹Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

¹⁸I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

¹⁹And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

²⁶Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.

⁴And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the Lord would not pardon.

⁵We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:

⁶Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

⁷O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.

⁸O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.

⁹To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him;

¹⁰Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.

¹¹Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.

¹²And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem.

¹³As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth.

¹⁴Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.

¹³In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.

¹³Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord.

²⁷He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;

²⁸He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.

¹⁸¶ The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

¹⁶The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!

⁵Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?

¹⁷The Lord hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

²¹The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.

¹HOW hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

²The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

⁶⁶Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord.

¹⁵So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

¹⁷Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.

⁹And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.

¹⁸Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

¹⁰And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.

¹⁹Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.

⁸Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

¹³Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts:

²Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.

¹THEN said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.

¹¹Then said the Lord unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.

⁴O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?

¹³Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

¹³And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:

³⁷And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.

⁴⁴He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.

¹⁵All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

¹⁴I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

¹⁴They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

¹⁵They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

¹⁶All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

⁶But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

⁷All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

⁸He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

⁷But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.

⁹And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

¹⁰They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.

¹¹Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.

³⁸Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.

³⁹¶ And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,

⁴⁰And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

⁴¹Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,

⁴²He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

⁴³He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

⁴⁴The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

⁴⁵Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

¹³Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.

¹⁴Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.

¹⁰Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.

⁴We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

¹⁷Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.

¹⁸And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.

¹⁹These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?

⁴³Fear, and the pit, and the snare, shall be upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith the Lord.

⁴⁴He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for I will bring upon it, even upon Moab, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord.

¹³From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

⁴The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

¹HOW hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

²The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

³He hath cut off in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.

⁴He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire.

⁵The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

⁶And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: the Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

⁷The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.

⁸The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

⁹Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.

³⁵For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.