Home Prior Books Index
←Prev   Lamentations 3 as rendered by/in  Next→ 

Did you notice?
 You can SEARCH IslamAwakened: 

3:1  I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
3:2  He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light.
3:3  Surely against me has He turned His hand continually, the whole day long.
3:4  My flesh and my skin He has made waste away; He has broken my bones;
3:5  He has besieged and enveloped me with gall and travail.
3:6  He has set me in dark places, like the dead of long ago.
3:7  He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy.
3:8  Even when I cry for help, He shuts out my prayer.
3:9  He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.
3:10  He is to me a bear lying in wait, a lion in hiding.
3:11  He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces; He has made me desolate.
3:12  He has bent His bow and set me as a target for the arrow.
3:13  He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my inward parts.
3:14  I have become the derision of all my people, their mocking song all the day.
3:15  He has filled me with bitterness, He has sated me with wormwood.
3:16  He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and covered me with ashes.
3:17  My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten prosperity.
3:18  So I say, “My strength and my hope from the Lord have perished.”
3:19  Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
3:20  Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me.
3:21  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
3:22  It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed; His compassions do not fail.
3:23  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
3:24  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”
3:25  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
3:26  It is good that a man should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
3:27  It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
3:28  Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;
3:29  let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope.
3:30  Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.
3:31  For the Lord will not cast off forever.
3:32  But though He causes grief, yet He will have compassion according to the abundance of His mercies.
3:33  For He does not afflict from His heart, nor grieve the sons of men.
3:34  To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,
3:35  to turn aside the justice due a man in the presence of the Most High,
3:36  to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord does not approve.
3:37  Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
3:38  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad proceed?
3:39  Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
3:40  Let us search and try our ways, and return to the Lord!
3:41  Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:
3:42  We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned.
3:43  You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have killed and not pitied.
3:44  You have covered Yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer should pass through.
3:45  You have made us filthy refuse in the midst of the peoples.
3:46  All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
3:47  Panic and snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction.
3:48  My eyes flow with rivers of tears for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
3:49  My eyes flow and do not cease, without respite,
3:50  until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees.
3:51  My eyes bring suffering to my soul at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
3:52  My enemies chased me like a bird, without cause.
3:53  They cut off my life in the pit and cast stones on me.
3:54  Waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!”
3:55  I called on Your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit.
3:56  You have heard my plea: “Do not close Your ear to my cry for help!”
3:57  You drew near on the day I called on You, and You said, “Do not fear!”
3:58  O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul; You have redeemed my life.
3:59  O Lord, You have seen the wrong done to me; judge my case.
3:60  You have seen all their vengeance, all their schemes against me.
3:61  You have heard their reproach, O Lord, all their schemes against me,
3:62  the lips of my enemies and their devices against me all the day.
3:63  Look at their sitting down and their rising up; I am their mocking song.
3:64  Render to them a recompense, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
3:65  Give them hardness of heart; may Your curse be upon them!
3:66  In Your anger pursue and destroy them from under Your heavens, O Lord!