Old/New Testament
3 Afflicted, I have seen and know what it’s like
to feel the rod of God’s anger:
2 An absence of light and only darkness.
Darkness—that’s where God has driven me.
3 Against me and me alone, over and over,
God raises His hand incessantly.
4 Bones are broken, skin rubbed off, and my flesh wasted;
this is God’s doing:
5 Besieged in hardship,
wrapped in a husk of bitter poison and trouble;
6 Brought to darkness like those dead and decaying,
and left there alone to live.
7 Cut off from every avenue of escape, God has fenced me in
and tied me up with heavy chains.
8 Crying and carrying on do me no good;
God shuts out my prayer.
9 Closed in and blocked by walls of cut stone,
what paths I have left, He has twisted and confused my steps.
10 Dangerous as a stalking lion or a lurking bear,
God lies in wait for me.
11 Dragging me off the path and tearing me up,
He has left me desolate.
12 Drawing back His bow, God aims
straight at me with His own arrow.
13 Ever true arrows, ready in His quiver,
now sink into my gut.
14 Echoing taunts ring ’round me from the mouths of my own people,
laughing and joking about me all day long.
15 Enough! He has filled me with bitterness,
saturated me with gall.
16 For He crushes my teeth with a mouth filled with gravel;
He humiliates me, trampling me in ashes.
17 Fragmented, my self knows no peace.
I cannot remember what it’s like to be happy.
18 “Failed,” I say to myself. “My hope fails
in the face of what the Eternal One has done.”
19 Grievous thoughts of affliction and wandering plagued my mind—
great bitterness and gall.
20 Grieving, my soul thinks back;
these thoughts cripple, and I sink down.
21 Gaining hope,
I remember and wait for this thought:
22 How enduring is God’s loyal love;
the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion.
23 Here they are, every morning, new!
Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day.
24 Have courage, for the Eternal is all that I will need.
My soul boasts, “Hope in God; just wait.”
25 It is good. The Eternal One is good to those who expect Him,
to those who seek Him wholeheartedly.
26 It is good to wait quietly
for the Eternal to make things right again.
27 It is good to have to deal
with restraint and burdens when young.
28 Just leave in peace the one who waits in silence,
patiently bearing the burden of God;
29 Just don’t interfere if he falls, gape-mouthed in the dust.
There may well be hope yet.
30 Just let him offer his cheek when struck.
Let him be the butt of jokes.
This is the heart of the lament. Pain and despair are deep and lasting, but God’s rejection is not forever because Jerusalem is the city of the Lord.
31 Kept in God’s care:
the Lord won’t reject him forever.
32 Kindness prevails: Even though God torments sometimes,
the greatness of God’s loyal love wins out.
33 Keeping us down: it is not the desire or way of God’s heart
to hurt and grieve the children of men.
Hope is realized when the next generation of exiles in Babylonia receive God’s mercy and are brought back to the promised land, Palestine, in a second exodus, a journey not unlike what the Israelites experienced as they left Egypt under Moses’ leadership.
God surely causes grief and torment, but He also provides kindness that originates from His heart of compassion. The discipline administered by the heavenly Father hurts, but the pain is not lasting and actually reflects His compassion. When the Lord sends affliction, it is instructive, restorative, and temporary. Affliction and judgment may sometimes come from the Almighty, but what always springs from the heart of God is a deep and eternal mercy for His people.
34 Left as captives of the land
to be stomped on and crushed,
35 Legal action and human rights denied
in the very presence of our exalted God,
36 Lord, surely You do not approve it—they deny
one person’s rights and a fair trial.
37 Matters not who says a thing will or won’t happen
unless the Lord determines that it should.
38 Most High God must proclaim it so—
for both good and bad, joy and sorrow come from Him, so
39 Mind your complaint. Why should a person fuss
when faced with the consequences of his own wrongdoing?
40 Now let’s search out our thoughts and ways
and return to the Eternal.
41 Now let’s lift up to God in heaven
our hearts along with our hands in praise and supplication.
42 Now, let us admit that we persisted in wrong
and You, God, were right to deny us forgiveness.
43 You have wrapped Yourself in anger.
You hunted us down and became our merciless killer.
44 Our prayers couldn’t penetrate the cloud
You then wrapped around Yourself.
45 Oh, we are trash: You’ve made us so
in the eyes of all people.
46 Putting us down, our enemies scoff.
They gape and gawk at us.
47 Panic and pitfalls are all around us,
nothing but breakdown and decay.
48 Pouring out from my eyes are tears like rivers
over the destruction of my people, daughter Zion.
49 Quenched? It can’t be quenched,
this sorrow in my eyes,
50 Quelled only by knowing that
the Eternal looks down from heaven and sees.
51 Quickly I recoil from what my eyes see; I am choked with grief
at the fate of the young women of my city.
52 Running me down, my enemies for no reason
hunt me, a tiny bird.
53 Rattling my bones with stones thrown down on my head,
having flung me mercilessly in a pit.
54 ’Round about me and over me, watery darkness closes in.
I cry out, “I’m drowning! All is lost, lost.”
55 Saying Your name, Eternal One, I called to You
from the darkness of this pit.
56 Surely You’ve heard me say,
“Don’t be deaf to my call; bring me relief!”
57 So close when I’ve called out in my distress,
You’ve whispered in my ear, “Do not be afraid.”
58 Taking up my cause, Lord, You’ve been my champion.
You’ve paid the price; You saved my life.
59 Terrible things have been done to me. You’ve seen it, Eternal One.
Judge my case with justice.
60 Their abuses against me are not hidden from You.
You’ve seen all the awful things my enemies determine to do to me.
61 Ugly words and uglier plans they have for me—
You’ve heard it all, Eternal One.
62 Under their breath, my adversaries whispering about me,
devising nasty schemes all the time.
63 Unkind jokes at my expense,
whether they’re sitting around or going to and fro.
64 Villains You will return to their recompense,
Eternal One, according to their deeds.
65 Visit them with anguish and an insensitivity to Your words.
Make Your curse fall hard on them.
66 Vehemently pummel them. Chase them down, obliterate them
from below the heavens of the Eternal, from the earth itself.
4 Aaghh! The gold no longer shines;
even our finest gold is changed,
And precious gems from the holy place
are scattered and spilled in the street.
2 But worse yet, the people themselves, the precious children of Zion,
are treated like clay pots formed by a potter—
Now debased and devalued,
but they were once worth their weight in gold.
3 Cruelty marks our young women.
Even jackals nourish their young,
But like the stupid ostrich in the desert,
my people don’t care a whit for their own.
4 Desperate infants thirst for milk,
their tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths.
Hungry children beg for food,
and no one responds.
5 Even those raised with a silver spoon,
swaddled in the richest fabrics,
Are starving, perishing in the streets.
They swarm through rubbish like flies.
6 Forever, without relief, it seems my city will suffer
more for their wrongdoing than cruel Sodom did;
With their instant and violent overthrow,
no one wrung hands in despair for that city.
7 Eternal One: Glory comes in service for those consecrated to Me;
they are purer and cleaner than snow and whiter than milk
Their bodies chiseled and healthy,
as polished as sapphires and redder than coral.
8 How stark the contrast; they have suffered so.
Now they are sullied with grime,
Unrecognizable on the streets,
skeletal and frail, as dry as tender.
9 If only they could have died valiantly by the sword—
rather than doubled over by famine,
This long-drawn agony of hunger,
deprived of the yield of the field.
10 Just imagine the injustice: loving mothers
are forced to cook their babies’ flesh.
Children have become their food!
All because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Is this poetic hyperbole, or could such a horror really have happened? Even today, famine and disease cause devastation in developing nations reminiscent of what this poet describes happening in Jerusalem. Suffering will always exist because sin—rebellion against God—affects every aspect of a culture at every level of society. When Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem in the early sixth century b.c., he did not allow any food or provision to enter the city; he literally waited for God’s people in Jerusalem to starve to death. As the executioner of God’s judgment, Nebuchadnezzar punished everyone equally, regardless of the severity of his or her sins, because all sin is worthy of death. The people in Jerusalem really experienced God’s dark cloud and His frowning countenance.
11 Kindling a fire, the Eternal attacked Zion
until nothing was left—not even the foundations.
His anger was poured out
as that angry fire consuming all.
12 Little did they know, thinking Jerusalem could not be breached—
not by kings, not by ordinary people, and not by anyone on the earth—
Absolutely no one imagined
Jerusalem’s enemies would get in.
13 Many and terrible were the crimes that her leaders,
the ones who should be most righteous of all, committed.
Prophets and priests shed the blood of the upstanding
and also the just in her midst.
14 Never had leaders wandered blindly,
polluted by the blood they spilled,
Untouchable even by their garments.
15 “Out! Get away from us. We’re impure. Do not touch us!”
the priests and prophets yelled.
So they wandered like fugitives, rejected wherever they went.
Even the foreign nations wouldn’t take them.
16 Presence of the Eternal is overwhelming.
God has scattered them to the winds.
He no longer held them in esteem:
the priests received no honor, the elders no respect.
17 Quietly we waited for help until our eyes failed.
We hoped and watched for a nation to rescue us.
But we waited in vain: no rescue came.
18 Routinely our steps were tracked
so that we could not even walk our own streets.
This was it, our days at an end;
we were done for.
19 Swifter than eagles in the sky,
they pursued us through the mountains;
And in all the wild places,
they hunted us and lay in wait.
20 Trapped, our king, the Eternal’s anointed, the breath of our life,
was taken to their pits;
Of him we said, “He casts a long shadow
that will protect us from the nations.”
21 Utter your words of joy: Edom, inhabitants of the land of Uz,
go ahead—be happy.
In time the cup of suffering will be yours too,
and you’ll drink so deeply, so perilously as to be intoxicated and stripped naked.
22 Viciously, daughter Zion, your iniquity has been punished.
That is done; your exile is over.
Daughter Edom, on the other hand, is a different story:
you’ll be called to account for your sins and uncovered accordingly.
A pun encourages daughter Zion that she will no longer be exiled or “uncovered,” but the same idiom condemns daughter Edom, for she will be “uncovered.”
5 Remember, Eternal One; don’t forget what happened.
Just look at how we are demeaned, disgraced.
2 All that You gave to us has been handed over to strangers.
Even our houses foreigners have taken for their own.
3 Abandoned too early and on our own, we are like fatherless children;
and our mothers, now widows, have nothing either.
4 The most basic necessities, food and water,
shelter and warmth, we must pay dearly for.
5 Those pursuing us breathe down the backs of our heavily-yoked necks,
driving us relentlessly.
Like overworked oxen, we are exhausted and without rest.
6 So what else could we do? We succumbed to agreements with Egypt and Assyria
just so we could get enough to eat and survive.
7 Our fathers sinned and got us into this.
Now they’ve passed on, and we suffer for it and bear their deeds.
8 Those less capable and less deserving slaves rule;
they are actually in charge of us—
Your chosen ones—and nobody sets it right.
Nobody comes to rescue us from their cruel hand.
9 At risk of life and limb, we seek our daily food
despite threats of sword and danger in the wild places.
10 We are feverish with hunger.
Famine’s scorching heat burns our flesh like an oven.
11 In the place where God should be—
Zion and the surrounding towns of Judah—
Women, young and old alike,
are brutally raped and violated.
12 Our leaders are made an example, hung by their hands,
and our elders are treated with contempt.
13 Our best youths are forced to grind grain relentlessly;
and boys stagger, bent under burdens of wood too heavy.
14 Gone from the gates are debate, trade, and the wisdom of sages.
The streets, too, are silent—the young neglect their music.
15 The joy from our hearts is gone, utterly gone.
Our once-dancing feet now plod along mournfully.
16 The wreath that crowned our head has slipped and fallen; now it’s crushed.
O how we’ve sinned! Pity us for the punishment we brought on ourselves.
17 We’re sick at heart about it all,
blind with the sorrow and grief we caused.
18 God’s heaven on earth, our Mount Zion, is desolate
except for the jackals who haunt only ruins.
19 But You, Eternal One, despite all this,
You will abide and rule forever, from generation to generation.
20 Why, then, have You completely forgotten about us?
Why have You turned Your back on us through so many dark days?
21 We are so sorry and have suffered for it.
Eternal One, take us back again,
That we may be restored to You and You to us,
just as it used to be.
22 Or are You so very angry that You’ve rejected us,
that You’ve given up on us completely?
19 So, my friends, Jesus by His blood gives us courage to enter the most holy place. 20 He has created for us a new and living way through the curtain, that is, through His flesh. 21 Since we have a great High Priest who presides over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with true hearts full of faith, with hearts rinsed clean of any evil conscience, and with bodies cleansed with pure water. 23 Let us hold strong to the confession of our hope, never wavering, since the One who promised it to us is faithful. 24 Let us consider how to inspire each other to greater love and to righteous deeds, 25 not forgetting to gather as a community, as some have forgotten, but encouraging each other, especially as the day of His return approaches.
The word translated “church” in English Bibles means literally “assembly of the called”; it implies that members have said “yes” to God’s call in their lives. We assemble because we are called into being by God Himself. Some people, for reasons only they know, choose to live their Christian faiths in isolation. When they do, they cut themselves off from the gifts, encouragement, and vitality of others. And perhaps, just as tragically, they deprive the church of the grace and life God has invested in them.
26 Now if we willfully persist in sin after receiving such knowledge of the truth, then there is no sacrifice left for those sins— 27 only the fearful prospect of judgment and a fierce fire that will consume God’s adversaries. 28 Remember that those who depart from the law of Moses are put to death without mercy based on the testimony of two or three witnesses.[a] 29 Just think how much more severe the punishment will be for those who have turned their backs on the Son of God, trampled on the blood of the covenant by which He made them holy, and outraged the Spirit of grace with their contempt. 30 For we know the God who said, “Vengeance belongs to Me—I will repay,”[b] also said, “The Eternal One will judge His people.”[c] 31 It is truly a frightening thing to be on the wrong side of the living God.
32 Instead, think back to the days after you were first enlightened and understood who Jesus was: when you endured all sorts of suffering in the name of the Lord, 33 when people held you up for public scorn and ridicule, or when they abused your partners and companions in the faith. 34 Remember how you had compassion for those in prison and how you cheerfully accepted the seizure of your possessions, knowing that you have a far greater and more enduring possession. 35 Remember this, and do not abandon your confidence, which will lead to rich rewards. 36 Simply endure, for when you have done as God requires of you, you will receive the promise. 37 As the prophet Habakkuk said,
In a little while, only a little longer,
the One who is coming will come without delay.
38 But My righteous one must live by faith,
for if he gives up his commitment,
My soul will have no pleasure in him.[d]
39 My friends, we are not those who give up hope and so are lost; but we are of the company who live by faith and so are saved.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.