--- title: "Lamentations 3 — World English Bible | Favorite Scriptures" description: "Read Lamentations 3 in the World English Bible. Free Bible reading, no account needed. Browse books and chapters, then save favorite passages in your personal library." last_updated: "2026-10-08" doc_version: "1" language: "en" canonical: "https://favoritescriptures.com/bible/lamentations/3" --- [Home](/)/[Bible](/bible)/[Lamentations](/bible/lamentations)/3 World English Bible # Lamentations 3 [1](#verse-1) I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. [2](#verse-2) He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light. [3](#verse-3) Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long. [4](#verse-4) He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones. [5](#verse-5) He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. [6](#verse-6) He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead. [7](#verse-7) He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy. [8](#verse-8) Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer. [9](#verse-9) He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked. [10](#verse-10) He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding. [11](#verse-11) He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate. [12](#verse-12) He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. [13](#verse-13) He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys. [14](#verse-14) I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long. [15](#verse-15) He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood. [16](#verse-16) He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes. [17](#verse-17) You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity. [18](#verse-18) I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from the LORD.” [19](#verse-19) Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness. [20](#verse-20) My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me. [21](#verse-21) This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope. [22](#verse-22) It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail. [23](#verse-23) They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. [24](#verse-24) “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.” [25](#verse-25) The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. [26](#verse-26) It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. [27](#verse-27) It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. [28](#verse-28) Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him. [29](#verse-29) Let him put his mouth in the dust, if it is so that there may be hope. [30](#verse-30) Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach. [31](#verse-31) For the Lord will not cast off forever. [32](#verse-32) For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. [33](#verse-33) For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. [34](#verse-34) To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, [35](#verse-35) to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High, [36](#verse-36) to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve. [37](#verse-37) Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it? [38](#verse-38) Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High? [39](#verse-39) Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? [40](#verse-40) Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. [41](#verse-41) Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens. [42](#verse-42) “We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned. [43](#verse-43) “You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied. [44](#verse-44) You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through. [45](#verse-45) You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples. [46](#verse-46) “All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us. [47](#verse-47) Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.” [48](#verse-48) My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. [49](#verse-49) My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission, [50](#verse-50) until the LORD looks down, and sees from heaven. [51](#verse-51) My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city. [52](#verse-52) They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause. [53](#verse-53) They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me. [54](#verse-54) Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.” [55](#verse-55) I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon. [56](#verse-56) You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.” [57](#verse-57) You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.” [58](#verse-58) Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life. [59](#verse-59) LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause. [60](#verse-60) You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me. [61](#verse-61) You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me, [62](#verse-62) the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long. [63](#verse-63) You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song. [64](#verse-64) You will pay them back, LORD, according to the work of their hands. [65](#verse-65) You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them. [66](#verse-66) You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD. [← Lamentations 2](/bible/lamentations/2)[Lamentations 4 →](/bible/lamentations/4) World English Bible · Public domain ## Keep what speaks to you. Create a free library to save passages, highlight verses, and keep your study notes together. [Start your free library](/login?mode=signup) ## Sitemap See the [complete sitemap](/sitemap.md).