Jeremiah’s Heavy Chain
א Aleph
I am the man who has aseen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
2 He has driven me and made me walk
In adarkness and not in light.
3 Surely against me He has aturned His hand
Repeatedly all the day.
ב Beth
4 He has caused my aflesh and my skin to waste away;
He has bbroken my bones.
5 He has abesieged and encompassed me with bgall and hardship.
6 aDark places He has made me inhabit,
Like those who have long been dead.
ג Gimel
7 He has awalled me in so that I cannot go out;
He has made my bchain heavy.
8 Even when I cry out and call for help,
He ashuts out my prayer.
9 He has ablocked my ways with cut stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
ד Daleth
10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.
11 He has turned aside my ways and atorn me to pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12 He abent His bow
And bset me as a target for the arrow.
ה He
13 He made the arrows of His aquiver
To enter into my inward parts.
14 I have become a alaughingstock to all my people,
Their bmusic of mockery all the day.
15 He has asaturated me with bitterness;
He has sated me with wormwood.
ו Vav
16 He has abroken my teeth with bgravel;
He has made me cower in the cdust.
17 My soul has been rejected afrom peace;
I have forgotten goodness.
18 So I say, “My strength has perished,
As well as my ahopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.”
The Lord Will Not Reject Forever
ז Zayin
19 Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the awormwood and gall.
20 Surely amy soul remembers
And is bbowed down within me.