Lamentations 3:19 - 3:66

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The Lord Will Not Reject Forever

ז Zayin

Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and gall.

Surely my soul remembers

And is bowed down within me.

This I will return to my heart;

Therefore I will wait in hope.

ח Heth

The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease,

For His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul,

“Therefore I wait for Him.”

ט Teth

Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him,

To the soul who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of Yahweh.

It is good for a man that he should bear

The yoke in his youth.

י Yodh

Let him sit alone and be silent

Since He has laid it on him.

Let him put his mouth in the dust;

Perhaps there is hope.

Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him;

Let him be saturated with reproach.

כ Kaph

For the Lord will not reject forever,

For if He causes grief,

Then He will have compassion

According to His abundant lovingkindness.

For He does not afflict from His heart

Or grieve the sons of men.

ל Lamedh

To crush under His feet

All the prisoners of the land,

To deprive a man of justice

In the presence of the Most High,

To defraud a man in his legal case—

These things the Lord does not see with approval.

מ Mem

Who is there who speaks and it happens,

Unless the Lord has commanded it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

That both calamities and good go forth?

Why should any living person or any man

Complain because of his sins?

נ Nun

Let us search out and examine our ways,

And let us return to Yahweh.

We lift up our heart to our hands

Toward God in heaven;

We have transgressed and rebelled;

You have not pardoned.

ס Samekh

You have covered Yourself with anger

And pursued us;

You have killed and have not spared.

You have covered Yourself with a cloud

So that no prayer can pass through.

You have made us mere scum and refuse

In the midst of the peoples.

פ Pe

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Panic and pitfall have befallen us,

Devastation and destruction;

My eyes run down with streams of water

Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

ע Ayin

My eyes pour down unceasingly,

Without stopping,

Until Yahweh looks down

And sees from heaven.

My eyes deal severely with my soul

Because of all the daughters of my city.

צ Tsadhe

My enemies without cause

Hunted me down like a bird;

They have silenced my life in the pit

And have placed a stone on me.

Waters flowed over my head;

I said, “I am cut off!”

ק Qoph

I called on Your name, O Yahweh,

Out of the lowest pit.

You have heard my voice,

“Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,

From my cry for help.”

You drew near when I called on You;

You said, “Do not fear!”

ר Resh

O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause;

You have redeemed my life.

O Yahweh, You have seen my oppression;

Judge my case.

You have seen all their vengeance,

All their purposes against me.

שׂ Sin - שׁ Shin

You have heard their reproach, O Yahweh,

All their purposes against me.

The lips of those who rise against me and their whispering

Are against me all day long.

Look on their sitting and their rising;

I am their mocking song.

ת Tav

You will recompense them, O Yahweh,

According to the work of their hands.

You will give them dullness of heart;

Your curse will be on them.

You will pursue them in anger and destroy them

From under the heavens of Yahweh!

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