Lamentations 1-2
Authorized (King James) Version
1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
how is she become as a widow!
she that was great among the nations,
and princess among the provinces,
how is she become tributary!
2 She weepeth sore in the night,
and her tears are on her cheeks:
among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they are become her enemies.
3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction,
and because of great servitude:
she dwelleth among the heathen,
she findeth no rest:
all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.
4 The ways of Zion do mourn,
because none come to the solemn feasts:
all her gates are desolate:
her priests sigh,
her virgins are afflicted,
and she is in bitterness.
5 Her adversaries are the chief,
her enemies prosper;
for the Lord hath afflicted her
for the multitude of her transgressions:
her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion
all her beauty is departed:
her princes are become like harts that find no pasture,
and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction
and of her miseries
all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old,
when her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
and none did help her:
the adversaries saw her,
and did mock at her sabbaths.
8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned;
therefore she is removed:
all that honoured her despise her,
because they have seen her nakedness:
yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
9 Her filthiness is in her skirts;
she remembereth not her last end;
therefore she came down wonderfully:
she had no comforter.
O Lord, behold my affliction:
for the enemy hath magnified himself.
10 The adversary hath spread out his hand
upon all her pleasant things:
for she hath seen that the heathen
entered into her sanctuary,
whom thou didst command
that they should not enter into thy congregation.
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread;
they have given their pleasant things
for meat to relieve the soul:
See, O Lord, and consider;
for I am become vile.
12 Is it nothing to you,
all ye that pass by?
behold, and see if there be any sorrow
like unto my sorrow,
which is done unto me,
wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me
in the day of his fierce anger.
13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones,
and it prevaileth against them:
he hath spread a net for my feet,
he hath turned me back:
he hath made me desolate
and faint all the day.
14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand:
they are wreathed,
and come up upon my neck:
he hath made my strength to fall,
the Lord hath delivered me into their hands,
from whom I am not able to rise up.
15 The Lord hath trodden under foot
all my mighty men in the midst of me:
he hath called an assembly against me
to crush my young men:
the Lord hath trodden the virgin,
the daughter of Judah,
as in a winepress.
16 For these things I weep;
mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,
because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me:
my children are desolate,
because the enemy prevailed.
17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands,
and there is none to comfort her:
the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob,
that his adversaries should be round about him:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18 The Lord is righteous;
for I have rebelled against his commandment:
hear, I pray you, all people,
and behold my sorrow:
my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me:
my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city,
while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
20 Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress:
my bowels are troubled;
mine heart is turned within me;
for I have grievously rebelled:
abroad the sword bereaveth,
at home there is as death.
21 They have heard that I sigh:
there is none to comfort me:
all mine enemies have heard of my trouble;
they are glad that thou hast done it:
thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called,
and they shall be like unto me.
22 Let all their wickedness come before thee;
and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me
for all my transgressions:
for my sighs are many,
and my heart is faint.
2 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion
with a cloud in his anger,
and cast down from heaven unto the earth
the beauty of Israel,
and remembered not his footstool
in the day of his anger!
2 The Lord hath swallowed up
all the habitations of Jacob,
and hath not pitied:
he hath thrown down in his wrath
the strong holds of the daughter of Judah;
he hath brought them down to the ground:
he hath polluted the kingdom
and the princes thereof.
3 He hath cut off in his fierce anger
all the horn of Israel:
he hath drawn back his right hand
from before the enemy,
and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire,
which devoureth round about.
4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy:
he stood with his right hand as an adversary,
and slew all that were pleasant to the eye
in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion:
he poured out his fury like fire.
5 The Lord was as an enemy:
he hath swallowed up Israel,
he hath swallowed up all her palaces:
he hath destroyed his strong holds,
and hath increased in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.
6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle,
as if it were of a garden:
he hath destroyed his places of the assembly:
the Lord hath caused the solemn feasts
and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion,
and hath despised in the indignation of his anger
the king and the priest.
7 The Lord hath cast off his altar,
he hath abhorred his sanctuary,
he hath given up into the hand of the enemy
the walls of her palaces;
they have made a noise in the house of the Lord,
as in the day of a solemn feast.
8 The Lord hath purposed to destroy
the wall of the daughter of Zion:
he hath stretched out a line,
he hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying:
therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament;
they languished together.
9 Her gates are sunk into the ground;
he hath destroyed and broken her bars:
her king and her princes are among the Gentiles:
the law is no more;
her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit upon the ground, and keep silence:
they have cast up dust upon their heads;
they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
11 Mine eyes do fail with tears,
my bowels are troubled,
my liver is poured upon the earth,
for the destruction of the daughter of my people;
because the children and the sucklings
swoon in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
Where is corn and wine?
when they swooned as the wounded
in the streets of the city,
when their soul was poured out
into their mothers’ bosom.
13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee?
what thing shall I liken to thee,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
for thy breach is great like the sea:
who can heal thee?
14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
and they have not discovered thine iniquity,
to turn away thy captivity;
but have seen for thee false burdens
and causes of banishment.
15 All that pass by clap their hands at thee;
they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem,
saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty,
The joy of the whole earth?
16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:
they hiss and gnash the teeth:
they say, We have swallowed her up:
certainly this is the day that we looked for;
we have found, we have seen it.
17 The Lord hath done that which he had devised;
he hath fulfilled his word
that he had commanded in the days of old:
he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied:
and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee,
he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
18 Their heart cried unto the Lord,
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears run down like a river day and night:
give thyself no rest;
let not the apple of thine eye cease.
19 Arise, cry out in the night:
in the beginning of the watches
pour out thine heart like water
before the face of the Lord:
lift up thy hands toward him
for the life of thy young children,
that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
20 Behold, O Lord, and consider
to whom thou hast done this.
Shall the women eat their fruit,
and children of a span long?
shall the priest and the prophet
be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword;
thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger;
thou hast killed, and not pitied.
22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day
my terrors round about,
so that in the day of the Lord’s anger
none escaped nor remained:
those that I have swaddled and brought up
hath mine enemy consumed.
Philemon
Authorized (King James) Version
1 Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer, 2 and to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house: 3 Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, 5 hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; 6 that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. 7 For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother.
8 Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, 9 yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. 10 I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: 11 which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: 12 whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: 13 whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: 14 but without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. 15 For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; 16 not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?
17 If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. 18 If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; 19 I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides. 20 Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels in the Lord. 21 Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say. 22 But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you.
23 There salute thee Epaphras, my fellowprisoner in Christ Jesus; 24 Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellowlabourers.
25 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
Written from Rome to Philemon, by Onesimus a servant.
Psalm 101
Authorized (King James) Version
Psalm 101
A Psalm of David.
1 I will sing of mercy and judgment:
unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.
2 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way.
O when wilt thou come unto me?
I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes:
I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
4 A froward heart shall depart from me:
I will not know a wicked person.
5 Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off:
him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.
6 Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me:
he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me.
7 He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house:
he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.
8 I will early destroy all the wicked of the land;
that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord.
Proverbs 26:20
Authorized (King James) Version
20 Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out:
so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth.
KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.