Lamentations 3:14

“But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.

“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.

Deliver me from all my transgressions. Don’t make me the reproach of the foolish.

You make us a source of contention to our neighbors. Our enemies laugh among themselves.

The arrogant mock me excessively, but I don’t swerve from your law.

As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so the house of Israel is ashamed: they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets,

Yahweh, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded. You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day. Everyone mocks me.

Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

I can count all of my bones. They look and stare at me.

You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.

“Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I have put my Spirit on him. He will bring justice to the nations.

You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.

Then I said to them, “You see the bad situation that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let’s build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we won’t be disgraced.”

Their own tongues shall ruin them. All who see them will shake their heads.

All who pass by the way rob him. He has become a reproach to his neighbors.

Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”

Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, says to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and rise up, princes, and they shall worship, because of Yahweh who is faithful, even the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

“We are confounded, because we have heard reproach. Confusion has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh’s house.”

Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old; when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her. They mocked at her desolations.

So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; and Yahweh’s hand was strong on me.

“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because Moab and Seir say, ‘Behold, the house of Judah is like all the nations;’

Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and please let your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us.

For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of Ahab’s house. You walk in their counsels, that I may make you a ruin, and her inhabitants a hissing; And you will bear the reproach of my people.”

I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the insults of the children of Ammon, with which they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border.

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen; my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit on him. He will proclaim justice to the nations.

They braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they kneeled down before him, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at him.

One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!”

coming to him, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, precious.

Because it is contained in Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, chosen and precious: He who believes in him will not be disappointed.”

Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city!” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

Moses returned to Yahweh, and said, “Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you have sent me?

David spoke to the men who stood by him, saying, “What shall be done to the man who kills this Philistine, and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!”

David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, as were all the Levites who bore the ark, the singers, and Chenaniah the choir master with the singers; and David had an ephod of linen on him.

Then on that day David first ordained to give thanks to Yahweh, by the hand of Asaph and his brothers.

but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy.

He spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria, and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, since they are burned?”

that I may show all of your praise. I will rejoice in your salvation in the gates of the daughter of Zion.

I will extol you, Yahweh, for you have raised me up, and have not made my foes to rejoice over me.

You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us.

Praise waits for you, God, in Zion. Vows shall be performed to you.

God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.

Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scoffing of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud.

For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping on the mountains, skipping on the hills.

For Yahweh spoke this to me with a strong hand, and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying,

Now therefore don’t be scoffers, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, on the whole earth.

Then Yahweh’s ransomed ones will return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

Those ransomed by Yahweh will return, and come with singing to Zion. Everlasting joy shall be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them curses me.

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?

As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you. I haven’t desired the woeful day. You know. That which came out of my lips was before your face.

For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, “Violence and destruction!” because Yahweh’s word has been made a reproach to me, and a derision, all day.

If I say, I will not make mention of him, or speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in. I can’t.

“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “ ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’

“Yahweh has made you priest in the place of Jehoiada the priest, that there may be officers in Yahweh’s house, for every man who is crazy, and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles.

For wasn’t Israel a derision to you? Was he found among thieves? For as often as you speak of him, you shake your head.

You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples.

Your doom has come to you, inhabitant of the land! The time has come! The day is near, a day of tumult, and not of joyful shouting, on the mountains.

As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so I will do to you. You will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”

therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: The Lord Yahweh says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which have become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are all around;

The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.

He prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Please, Yahweh, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.

But as for me, I am full of power by Yahweh’s Spirit, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin.

Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

This they will have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of Yahweh of Armies.

It shall come to pass that, as you were a curse among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Don’t be afraid. Let your hands be strong.”

For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said,

For he will be delivered up to the Gentiles, will be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit on.

Herod with his soldiers humiliated him and mocked him. Dressing him in luxurious clothing, they sent him back to Pilate.

The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!”

‘Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which you will in no way believe, if one declares it to you.’ ”

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We want to hear you again concerning this.”

Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work?

For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about; for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me if I don’t preach the Good News.

Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.