Lamentations 4:17

and look to the earth, and see distress, darkness, and the gloom of anguish. They will be driven into thick darkness.

Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness doesn’t overtake us. We look for light, but see darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.

then the man shall bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring her offering for her: one tenth of an ephah of barley meal. He shall pour no oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, for it is a meal offering of jealousy, a meal offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to memory.

Joshua said to Achan, “My son, please give glory to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and make confession to him. Tell me now what you have done! Don’t hide it from me!”

When Jehu had come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked out at the window.

My eye wastes away because of grief. It grows old because of all my adversaries.

Attend to me, and answer me. I am restless in my complaint, and moan

We all roar like bears and moan bitterly like doves. We look for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far off from us.

a wild donkey used to the wilderness, that sniffs the wind in her craving. When she is in heat, who can turn her away? All those who seek her will not weary themselves. In her month, they will find her.

We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”

“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘You shall tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: “Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has come out to help you, will return to Egypt into their own land.

Of Egypt: concerning the army of Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.

She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

But you have utterly rejected us. You are very angry against us.

“Furthermore you sisters have sent for men who come from far away, to whom a messenger was sent, and behold, they came; for whom you washed yourself, painted your eyes, decorated yourself with ornaments,

In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I have given this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:

You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.

from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even to the border of Ekron northward, which is counted as Canaanite; the five lords of the Philistines; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites; also the Avvim,

But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of Yahweh, tell him, “Yahweh the God of Israel says, ‘Concerning the words which you have heard,

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it.

When I looked for good, then evil came. When I waited for light, darkness came.

Don’t put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help.

The way of the wicked is like darkness. They don’t know what they stumble over.

They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

Therefore the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.

They shall all be ashamed because of a people that can’t profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.”

For, behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but Yahweh will arise on you, and his glory shall be seen on you.

Our holy and our beautiful house where our fathers praised you is burned with fire. All our pleasant places are laid waste.

Therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend will perish.”

Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”

“Please inquire of Yahweh for us; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may withdraw from us.”

Pharaoh’s army had come out of Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they broke up from Jerusalem.

All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become despised.”

“Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

But those of those who escape, they will escape and will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity.

You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you weren’t satisfied.

It will no longer be the confidence of the house of Israel, bringing iniquity to memory, when they turn to look after them. Then they will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.” ’ ”

“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.

As for the sacrifices of my offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it; But Yahweh doesn’t accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt.

For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from Yahweh to the gate of Jerusalem.

They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

The border shall turn about from Azmon to the brook of Egypt, and it shall end at the sea.

Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides; for the day of their calamity is at hand. Their doom rushes at them.”

Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your mice that mar the land; and you shall give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will release his hand from you, from your gods, and from your land.

The king of Egypt didn’t come out of his land any more; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that belonged to the king of Egypt.

At that time king Ahaz sent to the kings of Assyria to help him.

For, behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.

I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

though you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death.

I am weary with my crying. My throat is dry. My eyes fail looking for my God.

When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel,

My eyes are dim from grief. I have called on you daily, Yahweh. I have spread out my hands to you.

Give us help against the enemy, for the help of man is vain.

My eyes fail for your word. I say, “When will you comfort me?”

Don’t exploit the poor, because he is poor; and don’t crush the needy in court;

They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

On great waters, the seed of the Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her revenue. She was the market of nations.

I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways,

What will you say, when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh.

“Ephraim is like an easily deceived dove, without understanding. They call to Egypt. They go to Assyria.

Ephraim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies lies and desolation. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt.

How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, that you may remove them far from their border.

For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.”

Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her servants moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts.

But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.”

For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.

For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby.

Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look, and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.”

But the eyes of the wicked will fail. They will have no way to flee. Their hope will be the giving up of the spirit.”

He who denounces his friends for plunder, Even the eyes of his children will fail.

“If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.

My eyes fail looking for your salvation, for your righteous word.

I chattered like a swallow or a crane. I moaned like a dove. My eyes weaken looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed. Be my security.”

Now what do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? Or why do you to go on the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?

Why do you go about so much to change your ways? You will be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.

You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life.

“The harvest is past. The summer has ended, and we are not saved.”

Give glory to Yahweh your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it deep darkness.

The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation.

Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

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.

“I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.

Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company won’t help him in the war, when they cast up mounds and build forts, to cut off many persons.

“ ‘ “All the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am Yahweh, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.