Chapter Text
3:1 I am the man who has seen affliction Because of the rod of His wrath.
3:2 He has driven me and made me walk In darkness and not in light.
3:3 Surely against me He has turned His hand Repeatedly all the day.
3:4 He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away; He has broken my bones.
3:5 He has besieged and encompassed me with gall and hardship.
3:6 Dark places He has made me inhabit, Like those who have long been dead.
3:7 He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy.
3:8 Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.
3:9 He has blocked my ways with cut stone; He has made my paths crooked.
3:10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait, Like a lion in secret places.
3:11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; He has made me desolate.
3:12 He bent His bow And set me as a target for the arrow.
3:13 He made the arrows of His quiver To enter into my inward parts.
3:14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their music of mockery all the day.
3:15 He has saturated me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood.
3:16 He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.
3:17 My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten goodness.
3:18 So I say, “My strength has perished, As well as my hopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.”
3:19 Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and gall.
3:20 Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me.
3:21 This I will return to my heart; Therefore I will wait in hope.
3:22 The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.
3:23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
3:24 “Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I wait for Him.”
3:25 Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him, To the soul who seeks Him.
3:26 It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of Yahweh.
3:27 It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth.
3:28 Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him.
3:29 Let him put his mouth in the dust; Perhaps there is hope.
3:30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him; Let him be saturated with reproach.
3:31 For the Lord will not reject forever,
3:32 For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness.
3:33 For He does not afflict from His heart Or grieve the sons of men.
3:34 To crush under His feet All the prisoners of the land,
3:35 To deprive a man of justice In the presence of the Most High,
3:36 To defraud a man in his legal case— These things the Lord does not see with approval.
3:37 Who is there who speaks and it happens, Unless the Lord has commanded it?
3:38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High That both calamities and good go forth?
3:39 Why should any living person or any man Complain because of his sins?
3:40 Let us search out and examine our ways, And let us return to Yahweh.
3:41 We lift up our heart to our hands Toward God in heaven;
3:42 We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned.
3:43 You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have killed and have not spared.
3:44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud So that no prayer can pass through.
3:45 You have made us mere scum and refuse In the midst of the peoples.
3:46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
3:47 Panic and pitfall have befallen us, Devastation and destruction;
3:48 My eyes run down with streams of water Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
3:49 My eyes pour down unceasingly, Without stopping,
3:50 Until Yahweh looks down And sees from heaven.
3:51 My eyes deal severely with my soul Because of all the daughters of my city.
3:52 My enemies without cause Hunted me down like a bird;
3:53 They have silenced my life in the pit And have placed a stone on me.
3:54 Waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!”
3:55 I called on Your name, O Yahweh, Out of the lowest pit.
3:56 You have heard my voice, “Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief, From my cry for help.”
3:57 You drew near when I called on You; You said, “Do not fear!”
3:58 O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause; You have redeemed my life.
3:59 O Yahweh, You have seen my oppression; Judge my case.
3:60 You have seen all their vengeance, All their purposes against me.
3:61 You have heard their reproach, O Yahweh, All their purposes against me.
3:62 The lips of those who rise against me and their whispering Are against me all day long.
3:63 Look on their sitting and their rising; I am their mocking song.
3:64 You will recompense them, O Yahweh, According to the work of their hands.
3:65 You will give them dullness of heart; Your curse will be on them.
3:66 You will pursue them in anger and destroy them From under the heavens of Yahweh!