•   Verse by verse
  •   Verse numbers
  •   Section headings
  •   Red letters

Lamentations 3

Jeremiah’s Heavy Chain

א  Aleph

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

ב  Beth

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

ג  Gimel

7
He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8
Even when I cry out and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
9
He has blocked my ways with cut stone;
He has made my paths crooked.

ד  Daleth

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

ה  He

13
He made the arrows of His quiver
To enter into my inward parts.
14
I have become a laughingstock to all my people,
Their music of mockery all the day.
15
He has saturated me with bitterness;
He has sated me with wormwood.

ו  Vav

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

The Lord Will Not Reject Forever

ז  Zayin

19
Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and gall.
20
Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
21
This I will return to my heart;
Therefore I will wait in hope.

ח  Heth

22
The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh 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.”

ט  Teth

25
Yahweh 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.

י  Yodh

28
Let him sit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
29
Let him put his mouth in the dust;
Perhaps there is hope.
30
Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him;
Let him be saturated with reproach.

כ  Kaph

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

ל  Lamedh

34
To crush under His feet
All the prisoners of the land,
35
To deprive a man of justice
In the presence of the Most High,
36
To defraud a man in his legal case—
These things the Lord does not see with approval.

מ  Mem

37
Who is 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 good go forth?
39
Why should any living person or any man
Complain because of his sins?

נ  Nun

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

ס  Samekh

43
You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have killed and have not spared.
44
You 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.

פ  Pe

46
All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47
Panic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;
48
My eyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

ע  Ayin

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

צ  Tsadhe

52
My enemies without cause
Hunted me down like a bird;
53
They have silenced my life in the pit
And have placed a stone on me.
54
Waters flowed over my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”

ק  Qoph

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

ר  Resh

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

שׂ  Sin - שׁ Shin

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

ת  Tav

64
You will recompense them, O Yahweh,
According to the work of their hands.
65
You will give them dullness of heart;
Your curse will be on them.
66
You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the heavens of Yahweh!