Today's Reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

²⁰My soul considers them, and is depressed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

³¹For the Lord will not reject forever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

⁴⁰Let us examine and search our ways, and return to the Lord.

⁴¹Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.

⁴²We have transgressed and have rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

⁵⁰until the Lord looks down and sees from heaven.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹ALEPH How the gold has become dim! How the most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

²The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, How they are regarded as clay jars, the work of the hands of the potter!

³Even the jackals offer the breast, they nurse their young ones, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴The nursing infant's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask for bread, but no one gives to them.

⁵Those who ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace ash heaps.

⁶For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in an instant, and no hands were laid on her.

⁷Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance was like lapis lazuli.

⁸They appear darker than soot; they are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered and has become as dry as a stick.

⁹Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; those who waste away, pierced through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

¹⁰The hands of the compassionate women have cooked their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹¹The Lord has accomplished his wrath, he has poured out his fierce anger; he has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations.

¹²The kings of the earth did not believe, neither all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary or the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.

¹³It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.

¹⁴They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, so that men can't touch their garments.

¹⁵"Turn away!" they cried to them, "Unclean! depart, depart, do not touch!" When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, "They shall not live here anymore."

¹⁶The Lord himself has scattered them; he will no more regard them. They did not respect the priests, they did not favor the elders.

¹⁷Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

¹⁸They hunt our steps, so that we can't go in our streets. Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end has come.

¹⁹Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

²⁰The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, "Under his shadow we can live among the nations."

²¹Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwell in the land of Uz. The cup shall pass through to you also; you will get drunk, and shall make yourself naked.

²²The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion; he will no more carry you away into captivity. He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom; he will uncover your sins.

¹Remember, Lord, what has come on us. Look, and see our disgrace.

²Our inheritance is turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners.

³We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are like widows.

⁴We have to pay for a drink of water; our wood is sold to us.

⁵Our pursuers are on our necks; we are weary, and have no rest.

⁶We have submitted to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians, to get enough bread.

⁷Our fathers sinned, and are no more; we have borne their iniquities.

⁸Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

⁹We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.

¹⁰Our skin is hot like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

¹¹They raped the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.

¹²Princes were hanged by their hands; elders were shown no respect.

¹³The young men grind at the mill; the boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁴The elders have gone from the gate, the young men from their music.

¹⁵The joy of our heart has ceased; our dancing is turned into mourning.

¹⁶The crown is fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹⁷For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes grow dim.

¹⁸For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate; the foxes walk on it.

¹⁹You, Lord, abide forever; your throne is from generation to generation.

²⁰Why do you keep on forgetting us? Why do you forsake us so long?

²¹Restore us to you, Lord, and we shall be restored; renew our days as in former times,

²²unless you have completely rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.

¹Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus;

²who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also was Moses in all his house.

³For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the house has more honor than the house.

⁴For every house is built by someone; but he who built all things is God.

⁵Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken,

⁶but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house; whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

⁷Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you will hear his voice,

⁸do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,

⁹where your fathers tested me and challenged me, and saw my works for forty years.

¹⁰Therefore I was displeased with this generation, and said, 'They always err in their heart, but they did not know my ways;'

¹¹as I swore in my wrath, 'They will not enter into my rest.'"

¹²Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;

¹³but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called "today;" lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

¹⁴For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end:

¹⁵while it is said, "Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion."

¹⁶For who, when they heard, rebelled? No, did not all those who came out of Egypt by Moses?

¹⁷With whom was he displeased forty years? Was not it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

¹⁸To whom did he swear that they would not enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

¹⁹We see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief.

¹The king's heart is in the Lord's hand like the watercourses. He turns it wherever he desires.

²Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.

³To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

⁴A high look, and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.

⁵The plans of the diligent surely lead to profit; and everyone who is hasty surely rushes to poverty.

⁶Getting treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor for those who seek death.

⁷The violence of the wicked will drive them away, because they refuse to do what is right.

⁸The way of the guilty is devious, but the conduct of the innocent is upright.

⁹It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than to share a house with a contentious woman.

¹⁰The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes.

¹¹When the mocker is punished, the simple gains wisdom. When the wise is instructed, he receives knowledge.

¹²The Righteous One considers the house of the wicked, and brings the wicked to ruin.

¹³Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he will also cry out, but shall not be heard.

¹⁴A gift in secret pacifies anger; and a bribe in the cloak, strong wrath.

¹⁵It is joy to the righteous to do justice; but it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity.

¹⁶The man who wanders out of the way of understanding shall rest in the assembly of the dead.

¹⁷He who loves pleasure shall be a poor man. He who loves wine and oil shall not be rich.

¹⁸The wicked is a ransom for the righteous; the treacherous for the upright.

¹⁹It is better to dwell in a desert land, than with a contentious and fretful woman.

²⁰There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man swallows it up.

²¹He who follows after righteousness and kindness finds life, righteousness, and honor.

²²A wise man scales the city of the mighty, and brings down the strength of its confidence.

²³Whoever guards his mouth and his tongue keeps his soul from troubles.

²⁴The proud and haughty man, "scoffer" is his name; he works in the arrogance of pride.

²⁵The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.

²⁶There are those who covet greedily all day long; but the righteous give and do not withhold.

²⁷The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination: how much more, when he brings it with a wicked mind!

²⁸A false witness will perish, and a man who listens speaks to eternity.

²⁹A wicked man hardens his face; but as for the upright, he establishes his ways.

³⁰There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord.

³¹The horse is prepared for the day of battle; but victory is with the Lord.