Lamentations 3:40-54
The Message
40-42 Let’s take a good look at the way we’re living
and reorder our lives under God.
Let’s lift our hearts and hands at one and the same time,
praying to God in heaven:
“We’ve been contrary and willful,
and you haven’t forgiven.
43-45 “You lost your temper with us, holding nothing back.
You chased us and cut us down without mercy.
You wrapped yourself in thick blankets of clouds
so no prayers could get through.
You treated us like dirty dishwater,
threw us out in the backyard of the nations.
46-48 “Our enemies shout abuse,
their mouths full of derision, spitting invective.
We’ve been to hell and back.
We’ve nowhere to turn, nowhere to go.
Rivers of tears pour from my eyes
at the smashup of my dear people.
49-51 “The tears stream from my eyes,
an artesian well of tears,
Until you, God, look down from on high,
look and see my tears.
When I see what’s happened to the young women in the city,
the pain breaks my heart.
52-54 “Enemies with no reason to be enemies
hunted me down like a bird.
They threw me into a pit,
then pelted me with stones.
Then the rains came and filled the pit.
The water rose over my head. I said, ‘It’s all over.’
Lamentations 3:40-54
New International Version
40 Let us examine our ways and test them,(A)
and let us return to the Lord.(B)
41 Let us lift up our hearts and our hands
to God in heaven,(C) and say:
42 “We have sinned and rebelled(D)
and you have not forgiven.(E)
43 “You have covered yourself with anger and pursued(F) us;
you have slain without pity.(G)
44 You have covered yourself with a cloud(H)
so that no prayer(I) can get through.(J)
45 You have made us scum(K) and refuse
among the nations.
46 “All our enemies have opened their mouths
wide(L) against us.(M)
47 We have suffered terror and pitfalls,(N)
ruin and destruction.(O)”
48 Streams of tears(P) flow from my eyes(Q)
because my people are destroyed.(R)
Lamentations 3:40-54
King James Version
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission.
50 Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
Read full chapterCopyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
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