Lamentations 3

Jeremiah’s Heavy Chain

Aleph

1I am the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
2He has driven me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
3Surely against me He has turned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
Beth

4He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away;
He has broken my bones.
5He has besieged and encompassed me with gall and hardship.
6Dark places He has made me inhabit,
Like those who have long been dead.
Gimel

7He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my ▼

▼Lit bronze piece

chain heavy.
8Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
9He has blocked my ways with cut stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
Daleth

10He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.
11He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12He bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.
He

13He made the ▼

▼Lit sons

arrows of His quiver
To enter into my ▼

▼Lit kidneys

inward parts.
14I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their music of mockery all the day.
15He has saturated me with bitterness;
He has sated me with wormwood.
Vav

16He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.
17My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten goodness.
18So I say, “My strength has perished,
As well as my hopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.”

The Lord Will Not Reject Forever

Zayin

19Remember my affliction and my ▼

▼Or bitterness

homelessness, the wormwood and gall.
20Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
21This I will return to my heart;
Therefore I will wait in hope.
Heth

22The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh ▼

▼Or that we are not consumed

indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I wait for Him.”
Teth

25Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
26 It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of Yahweh.
27 It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
Yodh

28Let him sit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
29Let him ▼

▼Lit give

put his mouth in the dust;
Perhaps there is hope.
30Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him;
Let him be saturated with reproach.
Kaph

31For the Lord will not reject forever,
32For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.
33For He does not afflict from His heart
Or grieve the sons of men.
Lamedh

34To crush under His feet
All the prisoners of the ▼

▼Or earth

land,
35To ▼

▼Or turn aside a man’s case

deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,
36To ▼

▼Lit make crooked

defraud a man in his legal case—
These things the Lord does not see with approval.
Mem

37Who is ▼

▼Lit this

there who speaks and it happens,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both calamities and ▼

▼Lit the good

good go forth?
39Why should any living ▼

▼Or human being

person or any man
Complain because of his sins?
Nun

40Let us search out and examine our ways,
And let us return to Yahweh.
41We lift up our heart to our hands
Toward God in heaven;
42We have transgressed and rebelled;
You have not pardoned.
Samekh

43You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have killed and have not spared.
44You have covered Yourself with a cloud
So that no prayer can pass through.
45 You have made us mere scum and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
Pe

46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47Panic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;
48My ▼

▼Lit eye brings

eyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Ayin

49My eyes pour down unceasingly,
Without stopping,
50Until Yahweh looks down
And sees from heaven.
51My eyes deal severely with my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.
Tsadhe

52My enemies without cause
Hunted me down like a bird;
53They have silenced my life in the pit
And have ▼

▼Or cast stones

placed a stone on me.
54Waters flowed over my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”
Qoph

55I called on Your name, O Yahweh,
Out of the lowest pit.
56You have heard my voice,
“Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help.”
57You drew near when I called on You;
You said, “Do not fear!”
Resh

58O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause;
You have redeemed my life.
59O Yahweh, You have seen my oppression;
Judge my case.
60You have seen all their vengeance,
All their purposes against me.
Sin / Shin

61You have heard their reproach, O Yahweh,
All their purposes against me.
62The lips of those who rise against me and their whispering
Are against me all day long.
63Look on their sitting and their rising;
I am their mocking song.
Tav

64You will recompense them, O Yahweh,
According to the work of their hands.
65You will give them ▼

▼Or insolence

dullness of heart;
Your curse will be on them.
66You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the heavens of Yahweh!