Chronological
37 For who can act against you without the Lord’s permission? 38 It is the Lord who helps one and harms another.
39 Why then should we, mere humans as we are, murmur and complain when punished for our sins? 40 Let us examine ourselves instead, and let us repent and turn again to the Lord. 41 Let us lift our hearts and hands to him in heaven, 42 for we have sinned; we have rebelled against the Lord, and he has not forgotten it.
43 You have engulfed us by your anger, Lord, and slain us without mercy. 44 You have veiled yourself as with a cloud so that our prayers do not reach through. 45 You have made us as refuse and garbage among the nations. 46 All our enemies have spoken out against us. 47 We are filled with fear, for we are trapped and desolate, destroyed.
48-49 My eyes flow day and night with never-ending streams of tears because of the destruction of my people. 50 Oh, that the Lord might look down from heaven and respond to my cry! 51 My heart is breaking over what is happening to the young girls of Jerusalem.
52 My enemies, whom I have never harmed, chased me as though I were a bird. 53 They threw me in a well and capped it with a rock. 54 The water flowed above my head. I thought, This is the end! 55 But I called upon your name, O Lord, from deep within the well, 56 and you heard me! You listened to my pleading; you heard my weeping! 57 Yes, you came at my despairing cry and told me not to fear.
58 O Lord, you are my lawyer! Plead my case! For you have redeemed my life. 59 You have seen the wrong they did to me; be my Judge, to prove me right. 60 You have seen the plots my foes have laid against me. 61 You have heard the vile names they have called me, 62 and all they say about me and their whispered plans. 63 See how they laugh and sing with glee, preparing my doom.
64 O Lord, repay them well for all the evil they have done. 65 Harden their hearts and curse them, Lord. 66 Go after them in fierce pursuit and wipe them off the earth, beneath the heavens of the Lord.
4 How the finest gold has lost its luster! For the inlaid[a] Temple walls are scattered in the streets! 2 The cream of our youth—the finest of the gold—are treated as earthenware pots. 3-4 Even the jackals feed their young, but not my people, Israel. They are like cruel desert ostriches, heedless of their babies’ cries. The children’s tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths for thirst, for there is not a drop of water left. Babies cry for bread, but no one can give them any. 5 Those who used to eat fastidiously are begging in the streets for anything at all. Those brought up in palaces now scratch in garbage pits for food. 6 For the sin of my people is greater than that of Sodom, where utter disaster struck in a moment without the hand of man.
7 Our princes were lean and tanned,[b] the finest specimens of men; 8 but now their faces are as black as soot. No one can recognize them. Their skin sticks to their bones; it is dry and hard and withered. 9 Those killed by the sword are far better off than those who die of slow starvation. 10 Tenderhearted women have cooked and eaten their own children; thus they survived the siege.
11 But now at last the anger of the Lord is satisfied; his fiercest anger has been poured out. He started a fire in Jerusalem that burned it down to its foundations. 12 Not a king in all the earth—no one in all the world—would have believed an enemy could enter through Jerusalem’s gates! 13 Yet God permitted it because of the sins of her prophets and priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood. 14 Now these same men are blindly staggering through the streets, covered with blood, defiling everything they touch.
15 “Get away!” the people shout at them. “You are defiled!” They flee to distant lands and wander there among the foreigners; but none will let them stay. 16 The Lord himself has dealt with them; he no longer helps them, for they persecuted the priests and elders who stayed true to God.
17 We look for our allies[c] to come and save us, but we look in vain. The nation we expected most to help us makes no move at all.
18 We can’t go into the streets without danger to our lives. Our end is near—our days are numbered. We are doomed. 19 Our enemies are swifter than the eagles; if we flee to the mountains, they find us. If we hide in the wilderness, they are waiting for us there. 20 Our king—the life of our life, the Lord’s anointed—was captured in their snares. Yes, even our mighty king, about whom we had boasted that under his protection we could hold our own against any nation on earth!
21 Do you rejoice, O people of Edom, in the land of Uz? But you, too, will feel the awful anger of the Lord. 22 Israel’s exile for her sins will end at last, but Edom’s never.
5 O Lord, remember all that has befallen us; see what sorrows we must bear! 2 Our homes, our nation, now are filled with foreigners. 3 We are orphans—our fathers dead, our mothers widowed. 4 We must even pay for water to drink; our fuel is sold to us at the highest of prices. 5 We bow our necks beneath the victors’ feet; unending work is now our lot. 6 We beg for bread from Egypt, and Assyria too.
7 Our fathers sinned but died before the hand of judgment fell. We have borne the blow that they deserved!
8 Our former servants have become our masters; there is no one left to save us. 9 We went into the wilderness to hunt for food, risking death from enemies. 10 Our skin was black from famine. 11 They rape the women of Jerusalem and the girls in Judah’s cities. 12 Our princes are hanged by their thumbs. Even aged men are treated with contempt. 13 They take away the young men to grind their grain, and the little children stagger beneath their heavy loads.
14 The old men sit no longer in the city gates; the young no longer dance and sing. 15 The joy of our hearts has ended; our dance has turned to death.[d] 16 Our glory is gone. The crown is fallen from our head. Woe upon us for our sins. 17 Our hearts are faint and weary; our eyes grow dim. 18 Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord are desolate, deserted by all but wild animals lurking in the ruins.
19 O Lord, forever you remain the same! Your throne continues from generation to generation. 20 Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so long? 21 Turn us around and bring us back to you again! That is our only hope! Give us back the joys we used to have! 22 Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.