Lamentations 3:1-18

Revised Standard Version

God’s Steadfast Love Endures

3 I am the man who has seen affliction
    under the rod of his wrath;
²he has driven and brought me
    into darkness without any light;
³surely against me he turns his hand
    again and again the whole day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away,
    and broken my bones;
⁵he has besieged and enveloped me
    with bitterness and tribulation;
⁶he has made me dwell in darkness
    like the dead of long ago.

⁷He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
    he has put heavy chains on me;
⁸though I call and cry for help,
    he shuts out my prayer;
⁹he has blocked my ways with hewn stones,
    he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
    like a lion in hiding;
¹¹he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;
    he has made me desolate;
¹²he bent his bow and set me
    as a mark for his arrow.

¹³He drove into my heart
    the arrows of his quiver;
¹⁴I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,
    the burden of their songs all day long.
¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,
    he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
    and made me cower in ashes;
¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace,
    I have forgotten what happiness is;
¹⁸so I say, “Gone is my glory,
    and my expectation from the Lord.”

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Revised Standard Version (RSV)

Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.