Lamentations

I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

Surely against me is He turned; He turns His hand against me all the day.

My flesh and my skin has He made old; He has broken my bones.

He has builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.

He has set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out: He has made my chain heavy.

Also when I cry and shout, He shutts out my prayer.

He has inclosed my ways with hewn stone, He has made my paths crooked.

He was to me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: He has made me desolate.

He has bent His bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my reins.

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

He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunken with wormwood.

He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He has covered me with ashes.

And You hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.

And I said, "My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:"

Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

It is of the LORD's [1] mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness.

"The LORD is my portion," says my soul; "therefore will I hope in Him."

The LORD is good to them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him.

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him.

He puts his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

He gives his cheek to him that smites him: he is filled full with reproach.

For the Lord will not cast off forever:

But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.

For He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

To crush under His feet all the prisoners of the earth,

To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,

To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approves not.

Who is he that says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord commands it not?

Out of the mouth of the most High proceeds not evil and good?

Wherefore does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.

Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.

We have transgressed and have rebelled: You hast not pardoned.

You hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: You hast slain, You hast not pitied.

You hast covered Yourself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.

You hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.

Mine eye runs down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Mine eye trickles down, and ceases not, without any intermission,

Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.

Mine eye affects mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.

Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.

They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, "I am cut off."

I called upon Your name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.

You hast heard my voice: hide not Your ear at my breathing, at my cry.

You drewest near in the day that I called upon You: You saidst, "Fear not."

O Lord, You hast pleaded the causes of my soul; You hast redeemed my life.

O LORD, You hast seen my wrong: judge You my cause.

You hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.

You hast heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;

The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.

Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.

Render to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

Give them sorrow of heart, Your curse to them.

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