MacWorld 1996 July/Macworld (1996-07).dmg/Shareware World/Communication/WarpSearch CGI 1.0/The_Bible/lamentations.txt

Text File | 1996-04-13 | 19KB | 397 lines

The next file is: LAMENTATIONS
1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, [that was] full of people!
 [how] is she become as a widow! she [that was] great among the
 nations, [and] princess among the provinces, [how] is she
 become tributary.
1:2 She weepeth bitterly in the night, and her tears [are] on
 her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort
 [her]: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they
 are become her enemies.
1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and
 because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she
 findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the
 straits.
1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn
 feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her
 virgins are afflicted, and she [is] in bitterness.
1:5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the
 LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her
 transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the
 enemy.
1:6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty hath departed:
 her princes are become like harts [that] find no pasture, and
 they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
1:7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of
 her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days
 of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and
 none helped her: the adversaries saw her, [and] mocked at her
 sabbaths.
1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed:
 all that honored her despise her, because they have seen her
 nakedness: yes, she sigheth and turneth backward.
1:9 Her filthiness [is] in her skirts; she remembereth not her
 last end; therefore she hath been wonderfully abased: she had
 no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath
 magnified [himself].
1:10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her
 pleasant things: for she hath seen [that] the heathen entered
 into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command [that] they should
 not enter into thy congregation.
1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their
 pleasant things for food to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and
 consider; for I am become vile.
1:12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and
 see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which hath fallen
 upon me, with which the LORD hath afflicted [me] in the day of
 his fierce anger.
1:13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it
 prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he
 hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate [and] faint all
 the day.
1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they
 are wreathed, [and] come up upon my neck: he hath made my
 strength to fall, the LORD hath delivered me into [their]
 hands, [from whom] I am not able to rise.
1:15 The LORD hath trodden under foot all my mighty [men] in the
 midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my
 young men: the LORD hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of
 Judah, [as] in a wine-press.
1:16 For these [things] I weep; my eye, my eye runneth down with
 water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far
 from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
1:17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, [and there is] none to
 comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, [that]
 his adversaries [should be] around him: Jerusalem is as a
 menstruous woman among them.
1:18 The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his
 commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my
 sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
1:19 I called for my lovers, [but] they deceived me: my priests
 and my elders resigned their breath in the city, while they
 sought their food to relieve their souls.
1:20 Behold, O LORD; for I [am] in distress: my bowels are
 troubled; my heart is turned within me; for I have grievously
 rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home [there is] as
 death.
1:21 They have heard that I sigh: [there is] none to comfort me:
 all my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that
 thou hast done [it]: thou wilt bring the day [that] thou hast
 called, and they shall be like me.
1:22 Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do to them,
 as thou hast done to me for all my transgressions: for my sighs
 [are] many, and my heart [is] faint.
2:1 How hath the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud
 in his anger, [and] cast down from heaven to the earth the
 beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day
 of his anger!
2:2 The LORD hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and
 hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong
 holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought [them] down to
 the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and its princes.
2:3 He hath cut off in [his] fierce anger all the horn of
 Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the
 enemy, and he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire, [which]
 devoureth on every side.
2:4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right
 hand as an adversary, and slew all [that were] pleasant to the
 eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out
 his fury like fire.
2:5 The LORD was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he
 hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong
 holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and
 lamentation.
2:6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as [if it
 were of] a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the
 assembly: the LORD hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths
 to be forgotten in Zion, and in the indignation of his anger
 hath despised the king and the priest.
2:7 The LORD hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his
 sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the
 walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of
 the LORD, as in the day of a solemn feast.
2:8 The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter
 of Zion: he hath stretched out a line, he hath not withdrawn
 his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the
 wall to lament; they languished together.
2:9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and
 broken her bars: her king and her princes [are] among the
 Gentiles: the law [is] no [more]: her prophets also find no
 vision from the LORD.
2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground,
 [and] keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads;
 they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of
 Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
2:11 My eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my
 liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the
 daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings
 swoon in the streets of the city.
2:12 They say to their mothers, Where [is] corn and wine? when
 they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when
 their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.
2:13 What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing
 shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I
 equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of
 Zion? for thy breach [is] great like the sea: who can heal
 thee?
2:14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee:
 and they have not revealed thy iniquity, to turn away thy
 captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of
 banishment.
2:15 All that pass by, clap [their] hands at thee; they hiss and
 wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying], [Is]
 this the city that [men] call the Perfection of beauty, the Joy
 of the whole earth?
2:16 All thy enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they
 hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed [her] up:
 certainly this [is] the day that we looked for; we have found,
 we have seen [it].
2:17 The LORD hath done [that] which he had devised; he hath
 fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he
 hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused [thy]
 enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thy
 adversaries.
2:18 Their heart cried to the LORD, O wall of the daughter of
 Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give
 thyself no rest; let not the apple of thy eye cease.
2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the
 watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the
 LORD: lift up thy hands towards him for the life of thy young
 children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.
2:20 Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this.
 Shall the women eat their fruit, children of a span long? shall
 the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the
 LORD?
2:21 The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my
 virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; thou hast
 slain [them] in the day of thy anger; thou hast killed, [and]
 not pitied.
2:22 Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors around, so
 that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained:
 those that I have swaddled and brought up, hath my enemy
 consumed.
3:1 I [am] the man [that] hath seen affliction by the rod of his
 wrath.
3:2 He hath led me, and brought [me into] darkness, but not
 [into] light.
3:3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand [against
 me] all the day.
3:4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my
 bones.
3:5 He hath built against me, and compassed [me] with gall and
 labor.
3:6 He hath set me in dark places, as [they that are] dead of
 old.
3:7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made
 my chain heavy.
3:8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
3:9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my
 paths crooked.
3:10 He [was] to me [as] a bear lying in wait, [and as] a lion
 in secret places.
3:11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he
 hath made me desolate.
3:12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
3:13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my
 reins.
3:14 I was a derision to all my people; [and] their song all the
 day.
3:15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken
 with wormwood.
3:16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath
 covered me with ashes.
3:17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat
 prosperity.
3:18 And I said, My strength and my hope hath perished from the
 LORD:
3:19 Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and
 the gall.
3:20 My soul hath [them] still in remembrance, and is humbled in
 me.
3:21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
3:22 [It is of] the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed,
 because his compassions fail not.
3:23 [They are] new every morning: great [is] thy faithfulness.
3:24 The LORD [is] my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I
 hope in him.
3:25 The LORD [is] good to them that wait for him, to the soul
 [that] seeketh him.
3:26 [It is] good that [a man] should both hope and quietly wait
 for the salvation of the LORD.
3:27 [It is] good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his
 youth.
3:28 He sitteth alone, and keepeth silence, because he hath
 borne [it] upon him.
3:29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if there may be hope.
3:30 He giveth [his] cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled
 full with reproach.
3:31 For the LORD will not cast off for ever:
3:32 But though he causeth grief, yet will he have compassion
 according to the multitude of his mercies.
3:33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children
 of men.
3:34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
3:35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the
 most High,
3:36 To subvert a man in his cause, the LORD approveth not.
3:37 Who [is] he [that] saith, and it cometh to pass, [when] the
 LORD commandeth [it] not?
3:38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and
 good?
3:39 Why doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of
 his sins?
3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
3:41 Let us lift up our heart with [our] hands to God in the
 heavens.
3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not
 pardoned.
3:43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast
 slain, thou hast not pitied.
3:44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that [our] prayer
 should not pass through.
3:45 Thou hast made us [as] the offscouring and refuse in the
 midst of the people.
3:46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
3:47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and
 destruction.
3:48 My eye runneth down with rivers of water for the
 destruction of the daughter of my people.
3:49 My eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any
 intermission,
3:50 Till the LORD shall look down, and behold from heaven.
3:51 My eye affecteth my heart because of all the daughters of
 my city.
3:52 My enemies chased me fiercely, like a bird without cause.
3:53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone
 upon me.
3:54 Waters flowed over my head; [then] I said, I am cut off.
3:55 I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.
3:56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thy ear at my breathing,
 at my cry.
3:57 Thou drewest near in the day [that] I called upon thee:
 thou saidst, Fear not.
3:58 O LORD, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast
 redeemed my life.
3:59 O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
3:60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance [and] all their
 imaginations against me.
3:61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, [and] all their
 imaginations against me;
3:62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device
 against me all the day.
3:63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I [am]
 their music.
3:64 Render to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work
 of their hands.
3:65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse to them.
3:66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens
 of the LORD.
4:1 How is the gold become dim! [how] is the most fine gold
 changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head
 of every street.
4:2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are
 they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the
 potter!
4:3 Even the sea-monsters draw out the breast, they nurse their
 young ones: the daughter of my people [is become] cruel, like
 the ostriches in the wilderness.
4:4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his
 mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, [and] no man
 breaketh [it] to them.
4:5 They that fed delicately are desolate in the streets: they
 that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
4:6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my
 people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that
 was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
4:7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than
 milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing
 [was] of sapphire:
4:8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in
 the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is
 withered, it is become like a stick.
4:9 [They that are] slain with the sword are better than [they
 that are] slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken
 through for [want of] the fruits of the field.
4:10 The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own
 children: they were their food in the destruction of the
 daughter of my people.
4:11 The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his
 fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath
 devoured her foundations.
4:12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the
 world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy
 would have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.
4:13 For the sins of her prophets, [and] the iniquities of her
 priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of
 her.
4:14 They have wandered [as] blind [men] in the streets, they
 have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not
 touch their garments.
4:15 They cried to them, Depart ye; [it is] unclean; depart,
 depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said
 among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn [there].
4:16 The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more
 regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests,
 they favored not the elders.
4:17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our
 watching we have watched for a nation [that] could not save
 [us].
4:18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our
 end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
4:19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of heaven: they
 pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the
 wilderness.
4:20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was
 taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall
 live among the heathen.
4:21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in
 the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through to thee: thou
 shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
4:22 The punishment of thy iniquity is accomplished, O daughter
 of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he
 will visit thy iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will disclose
 thy sins.
5:1 Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold
 our reproach.
5:2 Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to
 aliens.
5:3 We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers [are] as widows.
5:4 We have drank our water for money; our wood is sold to us.
5:5 Our necks [are] under persecution: we labor, [and] have no
 rest.
5:6 We have given the hand [to] the Egyptians, [and to] the
 Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
5:7 Our fathers have sinned, [and are] not; and we have borne
 their iniquities.
5:8 Servants have ruled over us: [there is] none that doth
 deliver [us] out of their hand.
5:9 We procured our bread with [the peril of] our lives, because
 of the sword of the wilderness.
5:10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible
 famine.
5:11 They ravished the women in Zion, [and] the maids in the
 cities of Judah.
5:12 Princes were hanged by their hand: the faces of elders were
 not honored.
5:13 They took the young men to grind, and the children fell
 under the wood.
5:14 The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from
 their music.
5:15 The joy of our heart hath ceased; our dance is turned into
 mourning.
5:16 The crown is fallen [from] our head: woe to us, that we
 have sinned!
5:17 For this our heart is faint; for these [things] our eyes
 are dim.
5:18 Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the
 foxes walk upon it.
5:19 Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from
 generation to generation.
5:20 Why dost thou forget us for ever, [and] forsake us so long
 time?
5:21 Turn thou us to thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew
 our days as of old.
5:22 But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth
 against us.