Lamentations · 66 verses
Lamentations 3
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A man is hunted like a bird, dropped alive into a pit, buried under stones, drowned beneath rising waters—and then hears, from the depths, “Do not be afraid.”
Under the rodvv. 1–18
The speaker begins as “the man who has seen affliction,” driven into darkness, walled in, chained, mocked, fed bitterness, and made a target. God is described by turns as a besieging force, a bear, a lion, and an archer; the poor man’s anatomy is having a particularly trying day. At the end of this movement, even strength and hope have perished.
The strange goodness of waitingvv. 19–33
The memory of wormwood and gall brings the speaker low, but another memory interrupts: the LORD’s mercies are new every morning. Hope now takes the form of waiting quietly, bearing a yoke, sitting alone, burying the face in dust, and offering the cheek to a striker. It is a remarkably austere catalogue of things called good, though the passage insists that the Lord will not cast people off forever and does not willingly afflict them.
Anger, justice, and confessionvv. 34–45
The speech turns from the sufferer’s private misery to the treatment of prisoners, justice, lawsuits, adversity, and sin. The people are summoned to examine their ways and lift hearts and hands toward heaven, then confess that they have sinned and rebelled. Yet their confession is set beside the accusation that God has pursued, killed without pity, and covered Himself with a cloud through which no prayer can pass—a knot the passage leaves firmly tied.
From the Pitvv. 46–66
Enemies open their mouths while panic, pitfall, devastation, and destruction arrive. The speaker’s eyes stream over the destruction of the daughter of his people and the daughters of his city; then his enemies hunt him without cause, drop him alive into a pit, throw stones, and let water rise over his head. From that crowded little procession of deaths, he calls on the LORD, who draws near, speaks, defends his cause, and hears the plots of the assailants. The final word asks for repayment, anguish, curse, pursuit, and extermination—the prayer leaves the enemies nowhere pleasant to sit.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Lam 3:1I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath.
Lam 3:2He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness instead of light.
Lam 3:3Indeed, He keeps turning His hand against me all day long.
Lam 3:4He has worn away my flesh and skin; He has shattered my bones.
Lam 3:5He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
Lam 3:6He has made me dwell in darkness like those dead for ages.
Lam 3:7He has walled me in so I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains.
Lam 3:8Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.
Lam 3:9He has barred my ways with cut stones; He has made my paths crooked.
Lam 3:10He is a bear lying in wait, a lion hiding in ambush.
Lam 3:11He forced me off my path and tore me to pieces; He left me without help.
Lam 3:12He bent His bow and set me as the target for His arrow.
Lam 3:13He pierced my kidneys with His arrows.
Lam 3:14I am a laughingstock to all my people; they mock me in song all day long.
Lam 3:15He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.
Lam 3:16He has ground my teeth with gravel and trampled me in the dust.
Lam 3:17My soul has been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.
Lam 3:18So I say, “My strength has perished, along with my hope from the LORD.”
Lam 3:19Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall.
Lam 3:20Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me.
Lam 3:21Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope:
Lam 3:22Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail.
Lam 3:23They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!
Lam 3:24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”
Lam 3:25The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
Lam 3:26It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Lam 3:27It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is still young.
Lam 3:28Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it upon him.
Lam 3:29Let him bury his face in the dust—perhaps there is still hope.
Lam 3:30Let him offer his cheek to the one who would strike him; let him be filled with reproach.
Lam 3:32Even if He causes grief, He will show compassion according to His abundant loving devotion.
Lam 3:33For He does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.
Lam 3:34To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the land,
Lam 3:36to subvert a man in his lawsuit—of these the Lord does not approve.
Lam 3:37Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it?
Lam 3:38Do not both adversity and good come from the mouth of the Most High?
Lam 3:39Why should any mortal man complain, in view of his sins?
Lam 3:40Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD.
Lam 3:41Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:
Lam 3:42“We have sinned and rebelled; You have not forgiven.”
Lam 3:43You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity.
Lam 3:44You have covered Yourself with a cloud that no prayer can pass through.
Lam 3:45You have made us scum and refuse among the nations.
Lam 3:46All our enemies open their mouths against us.
Lam 3:47Panic and pitfall have come upon us—devastation and destruction.
Lam 3:48Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Lam 3:49My eyes overflow unceasingly, without relief,
Lam 3:50until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees.
Lam 3:51My eyes bring grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
Lam 3:52Without cause my enemies hunted me like a bird.
Lam 3:53They dropped me alive into a pit and cast stones upon me.
Lam 3:54The waters flowed over my head, and I thought I was going to die.
Lam 3:55I called on Your name, O LORD, out of the depths of the Pit.
Lam 3:56You heard my plea: “Do not ignore my cry for relief.”
Lam 3:57You drew near when I called on You; You said, “Do not be afraid.”
Lam 3:59You have seen, O LORD, the wrong done to me; vindicate my cause!
Lam 3:60You have seen all their malice, all their plots against me.
Lam 3:61O LORD, You have heard their insults, all their plots against me—
Lam 3:62the slander and murmuring of my assailants against me all day long.
Lam 3:63When they sit and when they rise, see how they mock me in song.
Lam 3:64You will pay them back what they deserve, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
Lam 3:65Put a veil of anguish over their hearts; may Your curse be upon them!
Lam 3:66You will pursue them in anger and exterminate them from under Your heavens, O LORD.
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 603 passages were voted onto 65 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 22Psalms 86:15But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.
- 22Luke 1:50His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.
- 23Hebrews 10:23Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.
- 22Nehemiah 9:31But in Your great compassion, You did not put an end to them; nor did You forsake them, for You are a gracious and compassionate God.
- 25Micah 7:7–8But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.
- 23Psalms 30:5For His anger is fleeting, but His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay the night, but joy comes in the morning.
- 22Micah 7:18–19Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
- 23Isaiah 33:2O LORD, be gracious to us! We wait for You. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble.
- 22Malachi 3:6“Because I, the LORD, do not change, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.
- 22Psalms 78:38And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.
- 23Psalms 89:33But I will not withdraw My loving devotion from him, nor ever betray My faithfulness.
- 23Psalms 36:5Your loving devotion, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.
- 25Isaiah 40:31But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.
- 37Psalms 33:9–11For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.
- 22Psalms 106:45And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.
- 26Psalms 37:7Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret when men prosper in their ways, when they carry out wicked schemes.
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