Suffering and Hope in God's Steadfast Love (part 2)
Lamentations 3:45-66
45You have made us offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.46All our enemies have opened their lips against us.47Dread and pit have become ours—the devastation and the breaking.48My eye goes down in streams of water over the breaking of the daughter of my people.49My eye pours forth and does not cease, without ceasing.50Until the LORD looks down and sees from heaven.51My eye was afflicted for my soul because of all the daughters of my city.52My enemies hunted me like a bird, hunting without cause.53They destroyed my life in the pit and cast a stone upon me.54Water flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.55I called on your name, the LORD, from the lowest pit.56You heard my voice; do not hide your ear from my relief or my cry.57You drew near on the day I called you and said, Do not fear.58You pleaded the cause of my soul, O LORD; you redeemed my life.59You saw my oppression, O LORD; render judgment for me.60You saw all their vengeance and all their plots against me.61You heard their reproach, O LORD—all their plots against me.62The lips of my adversaries and their Higgaion are against me all the day.63Look on their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their mocking.64Repay them according to the work of their hands, O LORD.65Give them a covering over the heart—your curse upon them.66Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens, O LORD.