Lamentations 3

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath. He has led me and made me walk in darkness, without light. Surely he turns his hand against me again and again, all day long. He has worn away my flesh and skin and broken my bones. He has built a siege around me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has made me dwell in dark places, like those long dead. He has walled me in so that I cannot escape;
he has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry out and plead for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone and twisted my paths. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding. He has turned me from my ways and torn me apart;
he has left me desolate. He has bent his bow and set me as a target for the arrow. He has driven the arrows of his quiver into my kidneys. I have become a laughingstock to all my people, their song all day long. He has filled me with bitter herbs and made me drink my fill of wormwood. He has broken my teeth with gravel and made me cower in ashes. You have cast my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten well-being. I said, “My endurance and my hope from the LORD have perished.” Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the gall. My soul remembers them continually and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Through the LORD’s steadfast love we have not perished, for his compassions have not failed. They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness! “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent, for the yoke has been laid upon him. Let him put his mouth in the dust;
perhaps there is hope. Let him offer his cheek to the one who strikes him and be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever. Though he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. For it is not from his heart that he afflicts or grieves human beings. To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, to deny a man justice before the presence of the Most High, to wrong a person in his case—the Lord does not approve. Who has spoken and brought it to pass unless the Lord commanded it? Do not calamities and good come from the mouth of the Most High? Why should a living man complain, a man about the punishment for his sins? Let us search and examine our ways and return to the LORD. Let us lift our heart with our hands to God in the heavens. We have transgressed and rebelled;
you have not forgiven. You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us;
you have killed without pity. You have covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. You have made us filth and refuse among the peoples. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. Terror and pit have come upon us, devastation and destruction. My eye pours out streams of water over the destruction of the daughter of my people. My eye flows without ceasing, without rest, until the LORD looks down and sees from heaven. My eye brings grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city. My enemies hunted me like a bird, without cause. They cut off my life in the pit and cast a stone at me. Waters rose over my head, and I said, “I am cut off!” I called on your name, LORD, from the deepest pit. You heard my voice: “Do not close your ear to my sighing, to my cry for help.” You drew near on the day I called to you;
you said, “Do not fear.” You have pleaded the causes of my soul, Lord;
you have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me, LORD;
judge my case. You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. You have heard their reproach, LORD, all their plots against me, the words of those who rise against me and their muttering against me all day long. Look at them as they sit and rise;
I am their mocking song. Repay them, LORD, according to the work of their hands. Give them hardness of heart;
let your curse be upon them. Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.

Rights and attribution