Day 308 of 365

Lam 2:1–3:66

2:1 ALEPH How the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the splendor of Israel, and hasn't remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

2:2 The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground; he has humiliated the kingdom and its princes.

2:3 He has cut off in fierce anger all the strength of Israel. He has drawn back his right hand before the enemy. He has blazed in Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.

2:4 He has bent his bow like an enemy; his right hand he has positioned like an adversary. He killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.

2:5 The Lord has become as an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel; he has swallowed up all her palaces and has destroyed its strongholds. He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

2:6 He has done violence to his temple, as if it were a garden; he has destroyed his place of assembly. The Lord has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion. He has spurned in his fierce anger the king and the priest.

2:7 The Lord has rejected his altar, he has disowned his sanctuary, and has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces. They have made a shout in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

2:8 The Lord has determined to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out the line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying. He has made the rampart and wall to lament; they languish together.

2:9 Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.

2:10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

2:11 My eyes are worn out from weeping, my stomach is churning. My heart is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.

2:12 They tell their mothers, "Where is grain and wine?" When they faint as the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in their mothers' bosom.

2:13 What shall I testify of you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is great like the sea. Who can heal you?

2:14 Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity, but have seen for you false and misleading oracles.

2:15 All that pass by clap their hands at you, they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, "Is this the city that men called 'The perfection of beauty,' 'The joy of the whole earth'?"

2:16 All your enemies have opened wide their mouth against you. 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 has done that which he purposed, he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to gloat over you and exalted the horn of your 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 yourself no respite; do not let your tears cease.

2:19 Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches. Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.

2:20 Look, Lord, and see to whom you have done like this! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

2:21 The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, without pity.

2:22 You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was none that escaped or remained in the day of the Lord's anger. Those that I have borne and brought up has my enemy destroyed.

3:1 ALEPH I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

3:2 He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.

3:3 Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.

3:4 My flesh and my skin he has made old; he has broken my bones.

3:5 He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

3:6 He has made me to dwell in dark places, like those that have been long dead.

3:7 He has walled me in, so I can't escape; he has made my chains heavy.

3:8 Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.

3:9 He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked.

3:10 He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.

3:11 He has obstructed my path, and torn me in pieces; he has made me desolate.

3:12 He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

3:13 He has caused the arrows of his quiver to pierce my inward parts.

3:14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, and their song all the day.

3:15 He has filled me with bitterness, he has given me in full measure wormwood.

3:16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel; he has pressed me down in the dust.

3:17 You have removed my soul far away from peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.

3:18 And I said, "My strength and my hope has perished from the Lord."

3:19 Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

3:20 My soul considers them, and is depressed.

3:21 But this I call to my mind; therefore I have hope:

3:22 The Lord's faithful love does not cease; his compassion does not fail.

3:23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

3:24 "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore will I hope in him."

3:25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

3:26 It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke while he is young.

3:28 Let him sit alone and keep silence when he is disciplining him.

3:29 Let him put his mouth to the dust, there may yet be hope.

3:30 Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled with insults.

3:31 For the Lord will not reject forever.

3:32 For though he may cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the abundance of his loving kindness.

3:33 For he is not predisposed to bring affliction or suffering to the children of men.

3:34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth;

3:35 to deprive a man of justice before the face of the Most High,

3:36 to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord does not approve.

3:37 Who can speak a thing and have it come to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?

3:38 Doesn't both calamity and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?

3:39 Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

3:40 Let us examine and search our ways, and return 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, and you have not forgiven.

3:43 You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you killed without sparing.

3:44 You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.

3:45 You have made us rubbish and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

3:46 All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

3:47 Fear and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.

3:48 Streams of tears run down from my eyes because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

3:49 My tears flow and do not cease, without respite,

3:50 until the Lord looks down and sees from heaven.

3:51 My eyes bring my soul grief, because of all the daughters of my city.

3:52 They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.

3:53 They have cut off my life in a pit, and have cast a stone on me.

3:54 Waters flowed over my head; I said, 'I am finished.'

3:55 I called on your name, Lord, out of the depths of the pit.

3:56 You heard my voice; do not hide your ear at my sighs, to my cry.

3:57 You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, "Do not be afraid."

3:58 Lord, you have taken up the case for my soul; you have redeemed my life.

3:59 Lord, you have seen the wrong done to me; judge my case.

3:60 You have seen all their vengeance and all their plots against me.

3:61 You have heard their insults, Lord, and all their plots against me.

3:62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.

3:63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their mocking song.

3:64 You will render to them what they deserve, Lord, according to the work of their hands.

3:65 You will give them hardness of heart as your curse to them.

3:66 You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.

Col 3:1–25

1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.

2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.

3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

4 When Christ, your life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever is worldly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;

6 for which things' sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.

7 You also once walked in those, when you lived in them;

8 but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings,

10 and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,

11 where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.

12 Put on therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;

13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as the Lord forgave you, so you also do.

14 Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.

15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to God.

17 Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him.

18 Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter against them.

20 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this pleases the Lord.

21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, so that they won't be discouraged.

22 Servants, obey in all things those who are your masters according to the flesh, not just when they are looking, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord.

23 And whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord, and not for men,

24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

25 But he who does wrong will receive again for the wrong that he has done, and there is no partiality.

Ps 128:1–6

1 Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.

2 For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you.

3 Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table.

4 Behold, thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord.

5 May the Lord bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

6 Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel.