Lamentations 3:40-57

Let us examine our path, ponder our ways, and return to YAHWEH’s heart. Let us pray, offering up our hearts in our hands to our God above. “We have sinned and rebelled, and you have not yet pardoned us. “You have blanketed us with your anger and then pursued us, slaughtering without pity. You shrouded yourself in a cloud too thick for prayer to pierce. You have reduced us to rubbish; we are the lowest scum among the nations. “Our enemies are a choir of scoffers and scolders. Panic and pitfall have been our portion; calamity and collapse have come upon us.” My eyes stream with torrents of tears as I weep over the ruin of my beloved people. My eyes will weep without stopping, with no relief in sight until YAHWEH looks down from heaven and sees how much we suffer. My heart is so grieved over Jerusalem, the daughter of my people. My enemies, who hate me for no reason, have trapped me like a bird. They buried me alive in a pit and covered it with stones. Water rose over my head; I thought, “I’m going to die!” YAHWEH I called on your name, YAHWEH, from the bottom of the pit. You have heard me cry out to you: “Do not close your ears to my sighs and to my cries.” You drew near when I called to you. You told me, “Do not be afraid!”