Lamentations 1 - Legacy Standard Bible

Lamentations 1

Zion Lays Desolate

א Aleph

How lonely sits the city

That was great with people!

She has become like a widow

Who was once great among the nations!

She who was a princess among the provinces

Has become a forced laborer!

ב Beth

She weeps bitterly in the night,

And her tears are on her cheeks;

She has none to comfort her

Among all her lovers.

All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;

They have become her enemies.

ג Gimel

Judah has gone into exile because of affliction

And because of great slavery;

She sits among the nations,

But she has found no rest;

All her pursuers have overtaken her

In the midst of distress.

ד Daleth

The roads of Zion are in mourning

Because no one comes to the appointed times.

All her gates are desolate;

Her priests are sighing,

Her virgins are grieving,

And she herself is bitter.

ה He

Her adversaries have become her masters;

Her enemies are complacent;

For Yahweh has caused her grief

Because of the greatness of her transgressions;

Her infants have gone away

As captives before the adversary.

ו Vav

So all her majesty

Has gone out from the daughter of Zion;

Her princes have become like deer

That have found no pasture;

So they have fled without strength

Before the pursuer.

ז Zayin

In the days of her affliction and homelessness

Jerusalem remembers all her precious things

That were from the days of old,

When her people fell into the hand of the adversary

And no one helped her.

The adversaries saw her;

They laughed at her ruin.

ח Heth

Jerusalem sinned greatly;

Therefore she has become an impure thing.

All who honored her despise her

Because they have seen her nakedness;

Even she herself sighs and turns away.

ט Teth

Her uncleanness was in her skirts;

She did not remember her future.

Therefore she has gone down astonishingly;

She has no comforter.

“See, O Yahweh, my affliction,

For the enemy has magnified himself!”

י Yodh

The adversary has stretched out his hand

Over all her desirable things,

For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary,

The ones whom You commanded

That they should not enter into Your assembly.

כ Kaph

All her people are sighing, seeking bread;

They have given their desirable things for food

To restore their souls.

“See, O Yahweh, and look,

For I am despised.”

ל Lamedh

“Is it nothing to all you who pass this way?

Look and see if there is any pain like my pain

Which was dealt severely to me,

Which Yahweh grieved me with on the day of His burning anger.

מ Mem

From on high He sent fire into my bones,

And it dominated them.

He has spread a net for my feet;

He has turned me back;

He has made me desolate,

Faint all day long.

נ Nun

The yoke of my transgressions is bound;

By His hand they are knit together.

They have come upon my neck;

He has made my strength stumble.

The Lord has given me into the hands

Of those against whom I am not able to stand.

ס Samekh

The Lord has rejected all my mighty men

In my midst;

He has called an appointed time against me

To break my young men;

The Lord has trodden as in a wine press

The virgin daughter of Judah.

ע Ayin

For these things I am weeping;

My eyes run down with water;

Because far from me is a comforter,

One who restores my soul.

My children are desolate

Because the enemy has prevailed.”

פ Pe

Zion stretches out her hands;

There is no one to comfort her;

Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob

That the ones round about him should be his adversaries;

Jerusalem has become an impure thing among them.

צ Tsadhe

“Yahweh is righteous;

For I have rebelled against His command;

Hear now, all peoples,

And behold my pain;

My virgins and my young men

Have gone into captivity.

ק Qoph

I called to my lovers, but they deceived me;

My priests and my elders breathed their last in the city

While they sought food for themselves in order to restore their souls.

ר Resh

See, O Yahweh, for I am in distress;

My inmost being is greatly disturbed;

My heart is overturned within me,

For I have been very rebellious.

In the street the sword bereaves;

In the house it is like death.

שׁ Shin

They have heard that I am sighing;

There is no one to comfort me;

All my enemies have heard of the evil done to me;

They rejoice that You have done it.

You have brought the day which You have proclaimed,

So that they will become like me.

ת Tav

Let all their evil come before You;

And deal severely with them as You have dealt severely with me

For all my transgressions;

For my groans are great and my heart is faint.”

2 Corinthians 9 - 10

God Loves a Cheerful Giver

For it is superfluous for me to write to you about this ministry to the saints; 2 for I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the Macedonians, that Achaia has been prepared since last year, and your zeal stirred up most of them. 3 But I have sent the brothers, in order that our boasting about you may not be made empty in this case, so that, as I was saying, you may be prepared; 4 lest if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we—not to speak of you—be put to shame in this certainty of ours. 5 So I regarded it necessary to encourage the brothers that they would go on ahead to you and arrange beforehand your previously promised blessing, so that the same would be ready as a blessing and not as a begrudging obligation. 6 Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows with blessing will also reap with blessing. 7 Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that in everything at every time having every sufficiency, you may have an abundance for every good deed; 9 as it is written,

“He scattered abroad, he gave to the needy,

His righteousness stands forever.”

10 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness; 11 you will be enriched in everything for all generosity, which through us is bringing about thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also abounding through many thanksgivings to God. 13 Because of the proven character given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the generosity of your fellowship toward them and toward all, 14 while they also, by prayer on your behalf, long for you because of the surpassing grace of God on you. 15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

Paul Defends His Authority

Now I, Paul, myself plead with you by the gentleness and forbearance of Christ—I who am humble when face-to-face with you, but courageous toward you when absent! 2 But I beg that when I am present I need not act so courageously with the confidence that I consider to daringly use against some, who consider us as if we walked according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds, 5 as we tear down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 6 and are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is fulfilled. 7 You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we. 8 For even if I boast somewhat further about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be put to shame, 9 for I do not wish to seem as if I would terrify you by my letters. 10 For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is weak and his words contemptible.” 11 Let such a person consider this, that what we are in word by letters when absent, such persons we are also in deed when present. 12 For we do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves, but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding. 13 But we will not boast beyond our measure, but within the measure of the area of influence which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even as far as you. 14 For we are not overextending ourselves, as if we did not reach you, (for we were the first to come even as far as you in the gospel of Christ), 15 not boasting beyond our measure in other men’s labors, but having the hope—that as your faith grows—to be enlarged even more by you within our area of influence, 16 so as to proclaim the gospel even to the regions beyond you, and not to boast in what has been accomplished in the area of influence of another. 17 But he who boasts is to boast in the Lord. 18 For it is not the one who commends himself that is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

Psalm 126

Those Who Sow in Tears Shall Reap with Joy

A Song of Ascents.

When Yahweh returned the captive ones of Zion,

We were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter

And our tongue with shouts of joy;

Then they said among the nations,

“Yahweh has done great things for them.”

Yahweh has done great things for us;

We are glad.

Restore our captivity, O Yahweh,

As the streams in the Negev.

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.

He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed,

Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, carrying his sheaves with him.