Lamentations 3:58–66

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³⁶Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.

⁴Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

³⁴Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of hosts is his name: he shall throughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.

²³My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed.

¹⁶The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.

³⁹¶ And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the Lord, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil: for the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife.

¹JUDGE me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.

²³Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

⁴²Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.

¹JUDGE me, O Lord; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide.

¹PLEAD my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me.

⁴For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right.

¹⁸¶ Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

¹⁹Give heed to me, O Lord, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me.

²⁰Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.

²¹Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

²²Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet.

²³Yet, Lord, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.

⁷¶ O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.

⁸For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.

⁹Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

¹⁰¶ For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.

¹AND king Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah.

²But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of the Lord, which he spake by the prophet Jeremiah.

³And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now unto the Lord our God for us.

⁴Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people: for they had not put him into prison.

⁵Then Pharaoh’s army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they departed from Jerusalem.

⁶¶ Then came the word of the Lord unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

⁷Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me to inquire of me; Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.

⁸And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire.

⁹Thus saith the Lord; Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart.

¹⁰For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.

¹¹¶ And it came to pass, that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh’s army,

¹²Then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to separate himself thence in the midst of the people.

¹³And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans.

¹⁴Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him: so Irijah took Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.

¹⁵Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.

¹⁶¶ When Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon, and into the cabins, and Jeremiah had remained there many days;

¹⁷Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took him out: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the Lord? And Jeremiah said, There is: for, said he, thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.

¹⁸Moreover Jeremiah said unto king Zedekiah, What have I offended against thee, or against thy servants, or against this people, that ye have put me in prison?

¹⁹Where are now your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land?

²⁰Therefore hear now, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray thee, be accepted before thee; that thou cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.

²¹Then Zedekiah the king commanded that they should commit Jeremiah into the court of the prison, and that they should give him daily a piece of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city were spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.

²³Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord.

¹⁹But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

²⁰But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

²¹Therefore thus saith the Lord of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life, saying, Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand:

¹⁰¶ Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.

¹⁹But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

²⁰But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

⁵⁹O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.

¹⁴Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.

¹REMEMBER, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

⁵⁰Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people;

⁸¶ I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border.

¹⁸Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord, and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name.

³⁰He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.

³Therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people:

³They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.

¹²For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak.

⁷Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, doth hear?

¹⁸¶ Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

²Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

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

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

⁴Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.

²⁰But, O Lord of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

¹⁴Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:

¹⁰And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

²⁹Call together the archers against Babylon: all ye that bend the bow, camp against it round about; let none thereof escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath been proud against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel.

⁶Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

¹⁰Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

²²If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.

³⁰But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as appeareth this day.

¹⁵Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.

¹⁶Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.

¹⁷Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.

¹⁸Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way. And all the people shall say, Amen.

¹⁹Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.

²⁰Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife; because he uncovereth his father’s skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen.

²¹Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, Amen.

²²Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.

²³Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall say, Amen.

²⁴Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbour secretly. And all the people shall say, Amen.

²⁵Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.

²⁶Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.

¹⁷As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.

¹⁸As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.

³When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

¹⁹Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.

¹¹Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.

⁴³Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.

¹⁶The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

²⁷And the Lord said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

²⁰The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.

²⁴And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them.

¹THUS saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

⁶Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them.

¹⁵If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.