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Lamentations 3

Lamentations 3 places hope in God’s unfailing mercy within a lament that continues through confession, tears, and appeals for justice.

An unnamed man describes affliction that feels like God has trapped him, wounded him, and shut out his prayers. Speaking about God and then to him, he recalls YHWH’s mercy amid the ruin of his people and city. His voice widens into communal confession before returning to tears and memories of rescue. The speaker’s identity is uncertain. The poem ends with an appeal for judgment against his enemies; its hope has not brought the lament to an end.

grieffeeling distant from Godwaiting
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1I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
3Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.
4He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.
5He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.
7He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.
8Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
9He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.
10He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.
11He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
12He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
14I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.
15He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.
16He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.
17You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity.
18I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from the LORD.”
19Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.
20My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
21This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope.
22It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail.
23They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.”
25The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
26It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
29Let him put his mouth in the dust, if it is so that there may be hope.
30Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach.
31For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
33For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
34To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
36to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.
37Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?
38Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
39Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
42“We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned.
43“You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.
44You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
45You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples.
46“All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
47Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”
48My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,
50until the LORD looks down, and sees from heaven.
51My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
52They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
53They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.
54Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.”
55I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.
56You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.”
57You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.”
58Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life.
59LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.
60You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me.
61You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me,
62the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.
63You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.
64You will pay them back, LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
66You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Lamentations 3:25After recalling mercy, the speaker affirms God’s goodness toward those who seek him, even while deliverance remains awaited.
Lamentations 3:26Hope takes the form of quiet waiting for God’s salvation within a poem still filled with distress.
Lamentations 3:40The communal call to examine their ways turns reflection on God’s judgment toward repentance and renewed prayer.
Where this chapter reaches

Psalm and Job share this chapter’s language of darkness, unanswered cries, and appeals for God to hear suffering, while Psalm also shares its hope in divine mercy. Jeremiah and Ezra share its movement toward communal confession, acknowledging rebellion and turning toward God.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

How does the return to tears after verses 21–33 shape your understanding of hope?

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What might searching your ways and turning to YHWH involve in your present circumstances?

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Questions people ask about Lamentations 3

Who is the man speaking in Lamentations 3?

The chapter does not name him. Jeremiah is a traditional identification, but the text itself leaves his identity open. He speaks as an afflicted individual, grieves over his people’s destruction, and joins their confession. His personal suffering and the community’s disaster remain intertwined throughout the poem.

What does Lamentations 3 mean by mercies being new every morning?

Verses 22–23 describe YHWH’s mercies as unfailing and renewed each morning. The speaker recalls this while still bowed down by misery. The claim rests on God’s faithfulness amid devastation. Later tears and pleas show that renewed mercy does not mean suffering has ended or each day feels better.

Does Lamentations 3:38 mean God approves of evil?

Verses 37–38 affirm God’s rule over calamity and well-being in a passage about judgment. Yet verses 34–36 state that the Lord disapproves of crushing prisoners and denying justice. The chapter holds God’s sovereignty alongside his rejection of human wrongdoing, and verse 33 says he takes no pleasure in afflicting people.

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Lamentations · 5 chapters
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What the Bible says about grief →What the Bible says about doubt →What the Bible says about patience →

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).