Jeremiah Shares Israel’s Affliction
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.
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 bbitterness and hardship.
6 In adark places He has made me dwell,
Like those who have long been dead.
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 hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
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.
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 mocking bsong all the day.
15 He has afilled me with bitterness,
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
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 happiness.
18 So I say, “My strength has perished,
And so has my ahope from the Lord.”
Hope of Relief in God’s Mercy
19 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the awormwood and bitterness.
20 Surely amy soul remembers
And is bbowed down within me.
21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have ahope.
22 The Lord’s alovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
bFor His compassions never fail.
23 They are new aevery morning;
Great is bYour faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my aportion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I bhave hope in Him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who await for Him,
To the person who bseeks Him.
26 It is good that he awaits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
28 Let him asit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the adust,
Perhaps there is bhope.
30 Let him give his acheek to the smiter,
Let him be filled with reproach.
31 For the Lord will anot reject forever,
32 For if He causes grief,
Then He will have acompassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.
33 For He adoes not afflict willingly
Or grieve the sons of men.
34 To crush under His feet
All the prisoners of the land,
35 To deprive a man of ajustice
In the presence of the Most High,
36 To adefraud a man in his lawsuit—
Of these things the Lord does not approve.
37 Who is there who speaks and it acomes to pass,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That aboth good and ill go forth?
39 Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer acomplaint in view of his sins?
40 Let us aexamine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the Lord.
41 We alift up our heart and hands
Toward God in heaven;
42 We have atransgressed and rebelled,
You have bnot pardoned.
43 You have covered Yourself with aanger
And bpursued us;
You have slain and chave not spared.
44 You have acovered Yourself with a cloud
So that bno prayer can pass through.
45 You have made us mere aoffscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
46 All our enemies have aopened their mouths against us.
47 aPanic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;
48 My aeyes run down with streams of water
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes pour down aunceasingly,
Without stopping,
50 Until the Lord alooks down
And sees from heaven.
51 My eyes bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies awithout cause
Hunted me down blike a bird;
53 They have silenced me ain the pit
And have bplaced a stone on me.
54 Waters flowed aover my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”
55 I acalled on Your name, O Lord,
Out of the lowest pit.
56 You have aheard my voice,
“bDo not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,
From my cry for help.”
57 You adrew near when I called on You;
You said, “bDo not fear!”
58 O Lord, You ahave pleaded my soul’s cause;
You have bredeemed my life.
59 O Lord, You have aseen my oppression;
bJudge my case.
60 You have seen all their vengeance,
All their aschemes against me.
61 You have heard their areproach, O Lord,
All their schemes against me.
62 The alips of my assailants and their whispering
Are against me all day long.
63 Look on their asitting and their rising;
bI am their mocking song.
64 You will arecompense them, O Lord,
According to the work of their hands.
65 You will give them ahardness of heart,
Your curse will be on them.
66 You will apursue them in anger and destroy them
From under the bheavens of the Lord!