Jeremiah Shares Israel’s Affliction

1I am the man who has seen affliction

Because of the rod of His wrath.

2He has driven me and made me walk

In darkness and not in light.

3Surely against me He has turned His hand

Repeatedly all the day.

4He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away,

He has broken my bones.

5He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.

6In dark places He has made me dwell,

Like those who have long been dead.

7He has walled me in so that I cannot go out;

He has made my chain heavy.

8Even when I cry out and call for help,

He shuts out my prayer.

9He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;

He has made my paths crooked.

10He is to me like a bear lying in wait,

Like a lion in secret places.

11He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces;

He has made me desolate.

12He bent His bow

And set me as a target for the arrow.

13He made the arrows of His quiver

To enter into my inward parts.

14I have become a laughingstock to all my people,

Their mocking song all the day.

15He has filled me with bitterness,

He has made me drunk with wormwood.

16He has broken my teeth with gravel;

He has made me cower in the dust.

17My soul has been rejected from peace;

I have forgotten happiness.

18So I say, “My strength has perished,

And so has my hope from the Lord.”

Hope of Relief in God’s Mercy

19Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.

20Surely my soul remembers

And is bowed down within me.

21This I recall to my mind,

Therefore I have hope.

22The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,

For His compassions never fail.

23They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

24“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“Therefore I have hope in Him.”

25The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,

To the person who seeks Him.

26It is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of the Lord.

27It is good for a man that he should bear

The yoke in his youth.

28Let him sit alone and be silent

Since He has laid it on him.

29Let him put his mouth in the dust,

Perhaps there is hope.

30Let him give his cheek to the smiter,

Let him be filled with reproach.

31For the Lord will not reject forever,

32For if He causes grief,

Then He will have compassion

According to His abundant lovingkindness.

33For He does not afflict willingly

Or grieve the sons of men.

34To crush under His feet

All the prisoners of the land,

35To deprive a man of justice

In the presence of the Most High,

36To defraud a man in his lawsuit—

Of these things the Lord does not approve.

37Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,

Unless the Lord has commanded it?

38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

That both good and ill go forth?

39Why should any living mortal, or any man,

Offer complaint in view of his sins?

40Let us examine and probe our ways,

And let us return to the Lord.

41We lift up our heart and hands

Toward God in heaven;

42We have transgressed and rebelled,

You have not pardoned.

43You have covered Yourself with anger

And pursued us;

You have slain and have not spared.

44You have covered Yourself with a cloud

So that no prayer can pass through.

45You have made us mere offscouring and refuse

In the midst of the peoples.

46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

47Panic and pitfall have befallen us,

Devastation and destruction;

48My eyes run down with streams of water

Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

49My eyes pour down unceasingly,

Without stopping,

50Until the Lord looks down

And sees from heaven.

51My eyes bring pain to my soul

Because of all the daughters of my city.

52My enemies without cause

Hunted me down like a bird;

53They have silenced me in the pit

And have placed a stone on me.

54Waters flowed over my head;

I said, “I am cut off!”

55I called on Your name, O Lord,

Out of the lowest pit.

56You have heard my voice,

“Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief,

From my cry for help.”

57You drew near when I called on You;

You said, “Do not fear!”

58O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause;

You have redeemed my life.

59O Lord, You have seen my oppression;

Judge my case.

60You have seen all their vengeance,

All their schemes against me.

61You have heard their reproach, O Lord,

All their schemes against me.

62The lips of my assailants and their whispering

Are against me all day long.

63Look on their sitting and their rising;

I am their mocking song.

64You will recompense them, O Lord,

According to the work of their hands.

65You will give them hardness of heart,

Your curse will be on them.

66You will pursue them in anger and destroy them

From under the heavens of the Lord!

God’s Final Word in His Son

1God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.

5For to which of the angels did He ever say,

“You are My Son,

Today I have begotten You”?

And again,

“I will be a Father to Him

And He shall be a Son to Me”?

6And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says,

“And let all the angels of God worship Him.”

7And of the angels He says,

“Who makes His angels winds,

And His ministers a flame of fire.”

8But of the Son He says,

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,

And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.

9You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;

Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You

With the oil of gladness above Your companions.”

10And,

“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,

And the heavens are the works of Your hands;

11They will perish, but You remain;

And they all will become old like a garment,

12And like a mantle You will roll them up;

Like a garment they will also be changed.

But You are the same,

And Your years will not come to an end.”

13But to which of the angels has He ever said,

“Sit at My right hand,

Until I make Your enemies

A footstool for Your feet”?

14Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

PSALM 102

Prayer of an Afflicted Man for Mercy on Himself and on Zion.

A Prayer of the Afflicted when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.

1Hear my prayer, O Lord!

And let my cry for help come to You.

2Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress;

Incline Your ear to me;

In the day when I call answer me quickly.

3For my days have been consumed in smoke,

And my bones have been scorched like a hearth.

4My heart has been smitten like grass and has withered away,

Indeed, I forget to eat my bread.

5Because of the loudness of my groaning

My bones cling to my flesh.

6I resemble a pelican of the wilderness;

I have become like an owl of the waste places.

7I lie awake,

I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop.

8My enemies have reproached me all day long;

Those who deride me have used my name as a curse.

9For I have eaten ashes like bread

And mingled my drink with weeping

10Because of Your indignation and Your wrath,

For You have lifted me up and cast me away.

11My days are like a lengthened shadow,

And I wither away like grass.

12But You, O Lord, abide forever,

And Your name to all generations.

13You will arise and have compassion on Zion;

For it is time to be gracious to her,

For the appointed time has come.

14Surely Your servants find pleasure in her stones

And feel pity for her dust.

15So the nations will fear the name of the Lord

And all the kings of the earth Your glory.

16For the Lord has built up Zion;

He has appeared in His glory.

17He has regarded the prayer of the destitute

And has not despised their prayer.

18This will be written for the generation to come,

That a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.

19For He looked down from His holy height;

From heaven the Lord gazed upon the earth,

20To hear the groaning of the prisoner,

To set free those who were doomed to death,

21That men may tell of the name of the Lord in Zion

And His praise in Jerusalem,

22When the peoples are gathered together,

And the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.

23He has weakened my strength in the way;

He has shortened my days.

24I say, “O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days,

Your years are throughout all generations.

25Of old You founded the earth,

And the heavens are the work of Your hands.

26Even they will perish, but You endure;

And all of them will wear out like a garment;

Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.

27But You are the same,

And Your years will not come to an end.

28The children of Your servants will continue,

And their descendants will be established before You.”

21Like charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire,

So is a contentious man to kindle strife.

22The words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels,

And they go down into the innermost parts of the body.