The Living Bible (256 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
A cloud of anger from the Lord has overcast Jerusalem; the fairest city of Israel lies in the dust of the earth, cast from the heights of heaven at his command. In his day of awesome fury he has shown no mercy even to his Temple.
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The Lord without mercy has destroyed every home in Israel. In his wrath he has broken every fortress, every wall. He has brought the kingdom to dust, with all its rulers.
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All the strength of Israel vanishes beneath his wrath. He has withdrawn his protection as the enemy attacks. God burns across the land of Israel like a raging fire.
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He bends his bow against his people as though he were an enemy. His strength is used against them to kill their finest youth. His fury is poured out like fire upon them.
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Yes, the Lord has vanquished Israel like an enemy. He has destroyed her forts and palaces. Sorrows and tears are his portion for Jerusalem.
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He has violently broken down his Temple as though it were a booth of leaves and branches in a garden! No longer can the people celebrate their holy feasts and Sabbaths. Kings and priests together fall before his wrath.
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The Lord has rejected his own altar, for he despises the false “worship” of his people; he has given their palaces to their enemies, who carouse in the Temple as Israel used to do on days of holy feasts!
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The Lord determined to destroy Jerusalem. He laid out an unalterable line of destruction. Therefore the ramparts and walls fell down before him.
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Jerusalem’s gates are useless. All their locks and bars are broken, for he has crushed them. Her kings and princes are enslaved in far-off lands, without a temple, without a divine law to govern them or prophetic vision to guide them.
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The elders of Jerusalem sit upon the ground in silence, clothed in sackcloth; they throw dust upon their heads in sorrow and despair. The virgins of Jerusalem hang their heads in shame.
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I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken, my spirit poured out, as I see what has happened to my people; little children and tiny babies are fainting and dying in the streets.
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“Mama, Mama, we want food,” they cry, and then collapse upon their mothers’ shrunken breasts. Their lives ebb away like those wounded in battle.
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In all the world has there ever been such sorrow? O Jerusalem, what can I compare your anguish to? How can I comfort you? For your wound is deep as the sea. Who can heal you?
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Your “prophets” have said so many foolish things, false to the core. They have not tried to hold you back from slavery by pointing out your sins. They lied and said that all was well.
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All who pass by scoff and shake their heads and say, “Is this the city called ‘Most Beautiful in All the World,’ and ‘Joy of All the Earth’?”
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All your enemies deride you. They hiss and grind their teeth and say, “We have destroyed her at last! Long have we waited for this hour, and it is finally here! With our own eyes we’ve seen her fall.”
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But it is the Lord who did it, just as he had warned. He has fulfilled the promises of doom he made so long ago. He has destroyed Jerusalem without mercy and caused her enemies to rejoice over her and boast of their power.
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Then the people wept before the Lord. O walls of Jerusalem, let tears fall down upon you like a river; give yourselves no rest from weeping day or night.
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Rise in the night and cry to your God. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord; lift up your hands to him; plead for your children as they faint with hunger in the streets.
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O Lord, think! These are your own people to whom you are doing this.
Shall mothers eat their little children, those they bounced upon their knees? Shall priests and prophets die within the Temple of the Lord?
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See them lying in the streets—old and young, boys and girls, killed by the enemies’ swords. You have killed them, Lord, in your anger; you have killed them without mercy.
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You have deliberately called for this destruction; in the day of your anger none escaped or remained. All my little children lie dead upon the streets before the enemy.
I am the man who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of God’s wrath.
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He has brought me into deepest darkness, shutting out all light.
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He has turned against me. Day and night his hand is heavy on me.
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He has made me old and has broken my bones.
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He has built forts against me and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
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He buried me in dark places, like those long dead.
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He has walled me in; I cannot escape; he has fastened me with heavy chains.
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And though I cry and shout, he will not hear my prayers!
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He has shut me into a place of high, smooth walls;
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he has filled my path with detours.
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He lurks like a bear, like a lion, waiting to attack me.
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He has dragged me into the underbrush and torn me with his claws, leaving me bleeding and desolate.
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He has bent his bow and aimed it squarely at me,
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and sent his arrows deep within my heart.
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My own people laugh at me; all day long they sing their ribald songs.
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He has filled me with bitterness and given me a cup of deepest sorrows to drink.
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He has made me eat gravel and broken my teeth; he has rolled me in ashes and dirt.
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O Lord, all peace and all prosperity have long since gone, for you have taken them away. I have forgotten what enjoyment is.
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All hope is gone; my strength has turned to water, for the Lord has left me.
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Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me!
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For I can never forget these awful years; always my soul will live in utter shame.
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Yet there is one ray of hope:
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his compassion never ends.
It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction.
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Great is his faithfulness; his loving-kindness begins afresh each day.
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My soul claims the Lord as my inheritance; therefore I will hope in him.
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The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him, to those who seek for him.
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It is good both to hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
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It is good for a young man to be under discipline,
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for it causes him to sit apart in silence beneath the Lord’s demands,
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to lie face downward in the dust; then at last there is hope for him.
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Let him turn the other cheek to those who strike him and accept their awful insults,
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for the Lord will not abandon him forever.
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Although God gives him grief, yet he will show compassion too, according to the greatness of his loving-kindness.
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For he does not enjoy afflicting men and causing sorrow.
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But you have trampled and crushed beneath your feet the lowly of the world, and deprived men of their God-given rights, and refused them justice. No wonder the Lord has had to deal with you!
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For who can act against you without the Lord’s permission?
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It is the Lord who helps one and harms another.
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Why then should we, mere humans as we are, murmur and complain when punished for our sins?
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Let us examine ourselves instead, and let us repent and turn again to the Lord.
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Let us lift our hearts and hands to him in heaven,
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for we have sinned; we have rebelled against the Lord, and he has not forgotten it.
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You have engulfed us by your anger, Lord, and slain us without mercy.
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You have veiled yourself as with a cloud so that our prayers do not reach through.
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You have made us as refuse and garbage among the nations.
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All our enemies have spoken out against us.
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We are filled with fear, for we are trapped and desolate, destroyed.
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My eyes flow day and night with never-ending streams of tears because of the destruction of my people.
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Oh, that the Lord might look down from heaven and respond to my cry!
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My heart is breaking over what is happening to the young girls of Jerusalem.
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My enemies, whom I have never harmed, chased me as though I were a bird.
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They threw me in a well and capped it with a rock.
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The water flowed above my head. I thought, This is the end!
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But I called upon your name, O Lord, from deep within the well,
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and you heard me! You listened to my pleading; you heard my weeping!
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Yes, you came at my despairing cry and told me not to fear.
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O Lord, you are my lawyer! Plead my case! For you have redeemed my life.
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You have seen the wrong they did to me; be my Judge, to prove me right.
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You have seen the plots my foes have laid against me.
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You have heard the vile names they have called me,
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and all they say about me and their whispered plans.
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See how they laugh and sing with glee, preparing my doom.
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O Lord, repay them well for all the evil they have done.
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Harden their hearts and curse them, Lord.
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Go after them in fierce pursuit and wipe them off the earth, beneath the heavens of the Lord.