Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁴ Sing, all you who remain faithful!
    Pour out your hearts to the Eternal with praise and melodies;
    let grateful music fill the air and bless His name.
⁵ His wrath, you see, is fleeting,
    but His grace lasts a lifetime.
The deepest pains may linger through the night,
    but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning.

⁶ When things were quiet and life was easy, I said in arrogance,
    “Nothing can shake me.”
⁷ By Your grace, Eternal,
    I thought I was as strong as a mountain;
But when You left my side and hid away,
    I crumbled in fear.

⁸ O Eternal One, I called out to You;
    I pleaded for Your compassion and forgiveness:
⁹ “I’m no good to You dead! What benefits come from my rotting corpse?
    My body in the grave will not praise You.
No songs will rise up from the dust of my bones.
    From dust comes no proclamation of Your faithfulness.
¹⁰ Hear me, Eternal Lord—please help me,
    Eternal One—be merciful!”

¹¹ You did it: You turned my deepest pains into joyful dancing;
    You stripped off my dark clothing
    and covered me with joyful light.
¹² You have restored my honor. My heart is ready to explode, erupt in new songs!
    It’s impossible to keep quiet!
    Eternal One, my God, my Life-Giver, I will thank You forever.

¹⁸ Raise your cry to the Lord with all your might!
    Take no relief; be ceaseless in grief.

Lady Jerusalem: Oh walls, may your stones cry out,
        cry out for daughter Zion;
    Make rivers with tears of sorrow, rushing.
        Do not cease from your weeping.

¹⁹     Stand up and yell in the night with all your heart;
        call to God even while the city sleeps during the night watch;
    Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord!
        Lift your hands and plead to Him for the lives of your children,
    For the babies weak with hunger
        dying on every street corner.

²⁰     Take heed, Eternal One!
        Look what You’ve done and to whom you have done this.
    Can it be—women eat their offspring, even their tender newborns;
        and in the most sacred places of the Eternal,
    Priests and prophets are slaughtered?

²¹     Unable to go on, young and old fall,
        lying in the dusty streets.
    My strong young men and women, all unmarried,
        are attacked and killed by Your sword in Your anger.
    You are responsible for this mayhem and misery.
        You, God, slew without pity.

²²     Victims all, You summoned those terrors surrounding me
        as if You were calling together a sacred festival.
    On the day of Your divine wrath there was no escapee,
        not even one survivor.
    The ones whom I raised up and made numerous,
        my enemy made a complete end of them.