KJ3 Literal Translation
Lamentations 3
The faithful bewail their calamities. By the mercies of Jehovah they nourish their hope. They pray for deliverance.
1I, the man, have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2He led me and made me go in darkness and not light.
3Surely He turned against me; He turns His hand all the day.
4He has wasted my flesh and my skin. He has shattered my bones.
5He built against me and has put around me bitterness and hardship.
6He has made me live in dark places like the dead of old.
7He walled around me and I cannot go out; He has made heavy my bronze chain.
8Also, when I cry out and shout for help, He shuts out my prayer.
9He walled up my ways with cut stone; my paths are crooked.
10He was a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in secret places.
11He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; He made me desolate.
12He has trod His bow and set me up as a mark for the arrow.
13He caused the sons of His quiver to enter into my kidneys.
14I was a mockery to all my people, their song all the day.
15He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.
16And He broke my teeth with gravel; He has covered me in the ashes.
17And You cast off my soul from peace; I have forgotten goodness.
18And I said, My strength and my hope have perished from Jehovah.
19Remember my affliction and my straying, as wormwood and bitterness.
20Remembering,my soul remembers and bows down on me.
21I return this to my heart; therefore I hope.
22It is by the kindnesses of Jehovah that we are not consumed, for His mercies are not ended.
23They are new by mornings; great is Your faithfulness.
24Jehovah is my portion, says my soul., therefore I shall hope to Him.
25Jehovah is good to those waiting on Him, to the soul seeking Him.
26It is good that he hopes for the salvation of Jehovah, even in silence.
27It is good for a man that he bear a yoke in his youth.
28He sits alone and is silent, for He laid it on him.
29He puts his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there is hope.
30He gives his cheek to the One smiting him; he is filled with reproach.
31For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32For if He causes grief, He will have pity according to His many kindnesses.
33For He does not afflict from His heart, and grieves the sons of man,
34to crush all the prisoners of earth under His feet,
35to turn aside the judgment of a man before the face of the Most High,
36to subvert a man in his cause. This, the Lord does not see.
37Who is this who speaks, and it occurs, though the Lord does not command it?
38Both the evil and the good do not go out from the mouth of the Most High.
39What? Should mankind complain, living man, because of his sins?
40Let us search and examine our ways, and turn back to Jehovah.
41Let us lift up our heart and palms to God in Heaven.
42We have transgressed and rebelled; You, You have not forgiven.
43You have wrapped Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain; You have not pitied.
44You have covered Yourself with a cloud, from any prayer passing through.
45You have set us as sweepings and garbage in the midst of the peoples.
46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47Dread and a pit is ours, devastation and ruin.
48Streams of water go down from my eye for the ruin of the daughter of my people.
49My eye flows out and does not cease, from there not being any ceasing,
50until Jehovah shall look down and see from Heaven.
51My tear thrusts down to my soul, from all the daughters of my city.
52Hunting the hunter has hunted me without cause like a bird.
53They have cut off my life in the pit, and they threw a stone at me.
54Waters flowed over on my head; I said, I am cut off.
55I called on Your name, O Jehovah, from the lowest pit.
56You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my relief, at my cry for help.
57You came near in the day I called You; You said, Do not fear!
58O Lord, You contended for the causes of my soul; You redeemed my life.
59You have seen my subversion, O Jehovah; judge my cause.
60You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
61You have heard their reproach, O Jehovah, all their plots against me,
62the lips of those rising up against me, and their scheming against me all the day.
63Look at their sitting and their rising up. I am their song.
64You will give back a recompense to them, O Jehovah, according to the work of their hands.
65You will give them a covering up of heart as Your curse to them.
66Pursue and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of Jehovah.
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