MKJV - Lamentations - 3

3:1  I the man have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

3:2  He has led me and made me go in darkness and not into light.

3:3  Surely He turned against me; He turns His hand all the day.

3:4  He has wasted my flesh and my skin; He has broken my bones.

3:5  He built against me and has circled me with bitterness and hardship.

3:6  He has made me live in dark places, like the dead of old.

3:7  He has set a fence around me and I cannot go out; He has made my bronze chain heavy.

3:8  Also when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.

3:9  He walled up my ways with cut stone; my paths are crooked.

3:10  He was a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in secret places.

3:11  He has turned my ways aside and torn me in pieces. He made me desolate.

3:12  He has bent His bow and set me as a mark for the arrow.

3:13  He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts.

3:14  I was a mockery to all my people, their song all the day.

3:15  He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.

3:16  He also broke my teeth with gravel; He has covered me in the ashes.

3:17  And You cast off my soul from peace; I have forgotten blessedness.

3:18  And I said, My strength and my hope from the LORD are gone.

3:19  Remember my affliction and my wandering, as wormwood and bitterness.

3:20  My soul vividly remembers and bows down on me.

3:21  I recall this to my mind; therefore I hope.

3:22  It is by the LORD's kindnesses that we are not destroyed, because His mercies never fail.

3:23  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

3:24  The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him.

3:25  The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.

3:26  It is good that one should hope for the salvation of the LORD, even in silence.

3:27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

3:28  He sits alone and keeps silence because He laid it on him.

3:29  He puts his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there may be hope.

3:30  He gives his cheek to Him who strikes him; he is filled with reproach.

3:31  For the Lord will not cast off forever;

3:32  for though He causes grief, yet He will have pity according to the multitude of His kindnesses.

3:33  For He does not afflict from His heart, nor does He grieve the sons of men;

3:34  to crush all the prisoners of the earth under his feet;

3:35  to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High;

3:36  to pervert a man in his cause-- this the LORD does not see.

3:37  Who is this who speaks, and it occurs, when the Lord does not command it?

3:38  From the mouth of the Most High does not go out the evil and the good.

3:39  What? Should mankind complain, a living man, because of his sins?

3:40  Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.

3:41  Let us lift up our heart and hands to God in Heaven.

3:42  We have sinned and have rebelled; You have not forgiven.

3:43  You have wrapped Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain; You have not pitied.

3:44  You have wrapped Yourself with a cloud from any prayer passing through.

3:45  You have made us as the sweepings and garbage in the midst of the peoples.

3:46  All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

3:47  Fear and a pit have come to us, shame and ruin.

3:48  Streams of water run down my eye for the ruin of the daughter of my people.

3:49  My eye flows out and does not cease, from there being no intermission,

3:50  until the LORD shall look down and behold from Heaven.

3:51  My eye pains my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

3:52  My haters have hunted me, like a bird, without cause.

3:53  They have cut off my life in the pit, and cast a stone at me.

3:54  Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.

3:55  I called on Your name, O LORD, out of the lowest pit.

3:56  You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my relief, at my cry for help.

3:57  You drew near in the day that I called on You; You said, Fear not.

3:58  O LORD, You strove for the causes of my soul; You redeemed my life.

3:59  O Lord, You have seen my wrong; judge my cause.

3:60  You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.

3:61  You have heard their reproach, O LORD, all their plots against me;

3:62  the lips of those who rose up against me, and their scheming against me all the day.

3:63  Behold their sitting down and their rising up; I am their song.

3:64  You will return to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

3:65  You will give them dullness of heart, Your curse on them.

3:66  Pursue and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.