Lamentations (WEB)

1: I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2: He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
3: Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.
4: My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.
5: He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.
6: He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.
7: He has walled me about, that I can't go forth; he has made my chain heavy.
8: Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
9: He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked.
10: He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.
11: He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he has made me desolate.
12: He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13: He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
14: I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.
15: He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
16: He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
17: You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity.
18: I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from Yahweh.
19: Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20: My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
21: This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope.
22: [It is of] Yahweh's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn't fail.
23: They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24: Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25: Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
26: It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
27: It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28: Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
29: Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.
30: Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach.
31: For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32: For though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
33: For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
34: To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
35: To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
36: To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn't approve.
37: Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn't command it?
38: Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
39: Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40: Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.
41: Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
42: We have transgressed and have rebelled; you have not pardoned.
43: You have covered with anger and pursued us; you have killed, you have not pitied.
44: You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
45: You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.
46: All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
47: Fear and the pit are come on us, devastation and destruction.
48: My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49: My eye pours down, and doesn't cease, without any intermission,
50: Until Yahweh look down, and see from heaven.
51: My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
52: They have chased me sore like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
53: They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.
54: Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.
55: I called on your name, Yahweh, out of the lowest dungeon.
56: You heard my voice; don't hide your ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57: You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, Don't be afraid.
58: Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.
59: Yahweh, you have seen my wrong; judge you my cause.
60: You have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against me.
61: You have heard their reproach, Yahweh, and all their devices against me,
62: The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63: See you their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song.
64: You will render to them a recompense, Yahweh, according to the work of their hands.
65: You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
66: You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.