Lamentations 5
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
A Plea for Mercy
5 Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
look, and see our disgrace!(A)
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
our homes to aliens.(B)
3 We have become orphans, fatherless;
our mothers are like widows.
4 We must pay for the water we drink;
the wood we get must be bought.
5 With a yoke[a] on our necks we are hard driven;
we are weary; we are given no rest.(C)
6 We have made a pact with[b] Egypt and Assyria
to get enough bread.(D)
7 Our ancestors sinned; they are no more,
and we bear their iniquities.(E)
8 Slaves rule over us;
there is no one to deliver us from their hand.(F)
9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin is black as an oven
from the scorching heat of famine.(G)
11 Women are raped in Zion,
young women in the towns of Judah.(H)
12 Princes are hung up by their hands;
no respect is shown to the elders.(I)
13 Young men are compelled to grind,
and boys stagger under loads of wood.(J)
14 The old men have left the city gate,
the young men their music.
15 The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has been turned to mourning.(K)
16 The crown has fallen from our head;
woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our hearts are sick;
because of these things our eyes have grown dim:(L)
18 because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate;
jackals prowl over it.
19 But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.(M)
20 Why have you forgotten us completely?
Why have you forsaken us these many days?(N)
21 Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old—(O)
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.(P)
1 Peter 3:13-22
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
13 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right,[a] you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear,[b] and do not be intimidated,(A) 15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you,(B) 16 yet do it with gentleness and respect. Maintain a good conscience so that, when you are maligned,[c] those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.(C) 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. 18 For Christ also suffered[d] for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you[e] to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,(D) 19 in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20 who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight lives, were saved through water.(E) 21 And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for[f] a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,(F) 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.(G)
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