69 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
69 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
Lamentations.
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Chapter 3.
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I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
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He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
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Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.
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He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.
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He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
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He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.
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He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.
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Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
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He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.
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He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.
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He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
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He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
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He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
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I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.
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He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.
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He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.
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You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity.
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I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from the LORD.”
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Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.
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My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
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This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope.
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It is because of The LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail.
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They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
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“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.”
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The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
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It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
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It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
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Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
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Let him put his mouth in the dust, if it is so that there may be hope.
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Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach.
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For the Lord will not cast off forever.
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For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
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For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
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To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
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to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
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to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.
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Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?
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Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
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Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
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Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
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Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
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“We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned.
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“You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.
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You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
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You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples.
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“All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
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Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”
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My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
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My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,
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until the LORD looks down, and sees from heaven.
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My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
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They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
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They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.
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Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.”
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I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.
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You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.”
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You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.”
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Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life.
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LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.
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You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me.
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You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me,
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the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.
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You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.
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You will pay them back, LORD, according to the work of their hands.
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You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
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You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.
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