Lamentations 3.22
English standard version

Souffrance et consolation

¹ I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of his wrath;
² he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
³ surely against me he turns his hand
again and again the whole day long.
⁴ He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;
⁵ he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
⁶ he has made me dwell in darkness
like the dead of long ago.
⁷ He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has made my chains heavy;
⁸ though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;
⁹ he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;
he has made my paths crooked.
¹⁰ He is a bear lying in wait for me,
a lion in hiding;
¹¹ he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;
he has made me desolate;
¹² he bent his bow and set me
as a target for his arrow.
¹³ He drove into my kidneys
the arrows of his quiver;
¹⁴ I have become the laughingstock of all peoples,
the object of their taunts all day long.
¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness;
he has sated me with wormwood.
¹⁶ He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
¹⁷ my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
¹⁸ so I say, My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord.
¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
²⁰ My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
²¹ But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ The Lord is my portion, says my soul,
therefore I will hope in him.
²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
²⁷ It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke in his youth.
²⁸ Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
²⁹ let him put his mouth in the dust&emdash;
there may yet be hope;
³⁰ let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
³¹ For the Lord will not
cast off forever,
³² but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
³³ for he does not afflict from his heart
or grieve the children of men.
³⁴ To crush underfoot
all the prisoners of the earth,
³⁵ to deny a man justice
in the presence of the Most High,
³⁶ to subvert a man in his lawsuit,
the Lord does not approve.
³⁷ Who has spoken and it came to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad come?
³⁹ Why should a living man complain,
a man, about the punishment of his sins?
⁴⁰ Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the Lord!
⁴¹ Let us lift up our hearts and hands
to God in heaven:
⁴² We have transgressed and rebelled,
and you have not forgiven.
⁴³ You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,
killing without pity;
⁴⁴ you have wrapped yourself with a cloud
so that no prayer can pass through.
⁴⁵ You have made us scum and garbage
among the peoples.
⁴⁶ All our enemies
open their mouths against us;
⁴⁷ panic and pitfall have come upon us,
devastation and destruction;
⁴⁸ my eyes flow with rivers of tears
because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
⁴⁹ My eyes will flow without ceasing,
without respite,
⁵⁰ until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees;
⁵¹ my eyes cause me grief
at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
⁵² I have been hunted like a bird
by those who were my enemies without cause;
⁵³ they flung me alive into the pit
and cast stones on me;
⁵⁴ water closed over my head;
I said, I am lost.
⁵⁵ I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;
⁵⁶ you heard my plea, Do not close
your ear to my cry for help!
⁵⁷ You came near when I called on you;
you said, Do not fear!
⁵⁸ You have taken up my cause, O Lord;
you have redeemed my life.
⁵⁹ You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord;
judge my cause.
⁶⁰ You have seen all their vengeance,
all their plots against me.
⁶¹ You have heard their taunts, O Lord,
all their plots against me.
⁶² The lips and thoughts of my assailants
are against me all the day long.
⁶³ Behold their sitting and their rising;
I am the object of their taunts.
⁶⁴ You will repay them, O Lord,
according to the work of their hands.
⁶⁵ You will give them dullness of heart;
your curse will be on them.
⁶⁶ You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
from under your heavens, O Lord.