I am the man who has seen affliction
        under the rod of his wrath;
    he has driven and brought me
        into darkness without any light;
    surely against me he turns his hand
        again and again the whole day long.
    
    
    He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
        he has broken my bones;
    he has besieged and enveloped me
        with bitterness and tribulation;
    he has made me dwell in darkness
        like the dead of long ago.
    
    
    He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
        he has made my chains heavy;
    though I call and cry for help,
        he shuts out my prayer;
    he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;
        he has made my paths crooked.
    
    
    He is a bear lying in wait for me,
        a lion in hiding;
    he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;
        he has made me desolate;
    he bent his bow and set me
        as a target for his arrow.
    
    
    He drove into my kidneys
        the arrows of his quiver;
    I have become the laughingstock of all my people,
        the object of their taunts all day long.
    He has filled me with bitterness;
        he has sated me with wormwood.
    
    
    He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
        and made me cower in ashes;
    my soul is bereft of peace;
        I have forgotten what happiness is;
    so I say, “My endurance has perished;
        so has my hope from the LORD.”
    
    
    Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
        the wormwood and the gall!
    My soul continually remembers it
        and is bowed down within me.
    But this I call to mind,
        and therefore I have hope:
    
    
    The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
        his mercies never come to an end;
    they are new every morning;
        great is your faithfulness.
    “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
        “therefore I will hope in him.”
    
    
    The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
        to the soul who seeks him.
    It is good that one should wait quietly
        for the salvation of the LORD.
    It is good for a man that he bear
        the yoke in his youth.
    
    
    Let him sit alone in silence
        when it is laid on him;
    let him put his mouth in the dust—
        there may yet be hope;
    let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
        and let him be filled with insults.
    
    
    For the Lord will not
        cast off forever,
    for, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
        according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
    for he does not afflict from his heart
        or grieve the children of men.
    
    
    To crush underfoot
        all the prisoners of the earth,
    to deny a man justice
        in the presence of the Most High,
    to subvert a man in his lawsuit,
        the Lord does not approve.
    
    
    Who has spoken and it came to pass,
        unless the Lord has commanded it?
    Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
        that good and bad come?
    Why should a living man complain,
        a man, about the punishment of his sins?
    
    
    Let us test and examine our ways,
        and return to the LORD!
    Let us lift up our hearts and hands
        to God in heaven:
    “We have transgressed and rebelled,
        and you have not forgiven.
    
    
    “You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,
        killing without pity;
    you have wrapped yourself with a cloud
        so that no prayer can pass through.
    You have made us scum and garbage
        among the peoples.
    
    
    “All our enemies
        open their mouths against us;
    panic and pitfall have come upon us,
        devastation and destruction;
    my eyes flow with rivers of tears
        because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
    
    
    “My eyes will flow without ceasing,
        without respite,
    until the LORD from heaven
        looks down and sees;
    my eyes cause me grief
        at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
    
    
    “I have been hunted like a bird
        by those who were my enemies without cause;
    they flung me alive into the pit
        and cast stones on me;
    water closed over my head;
        I said, ‘I am lost.’
    
    
    “I called on your name, O LORD,
        from the depths of the pit;
    you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
        your ear to my cry for help!’
    You came near when I called on you;
        you said, ‘Do not fear!’
    
    
    “You have taken up my cause, O Lord;
        you have redeemed my life.
    You have seen the wrong done to me, O LORD;
        judge my cause.
    You have seen all their vengeance,
        all their plots against me.
    
    
    “You have heard their taunts, O LORD,
        all their plots against me.
    The lips and thoughts of my assailants
        are against me all the day long.
    Behold their sitting and their rising;
        I am the object of their taunts.
    
    
    “You will repay them, O LORD,
        according to the work of their hands.
    You will give them dullness of heart;
        your curse will be on them.
    You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
        from under your heavens, O LORD.”
    
    
        How the gold has grown dim,
        how the pure gold is changed!
    The holy stones lie scattered
        at the head of every street.
    
    
    The precious sons of Zion,
        worth their weight in fine gold,
    how they are regarded as earthen pots,
        the work of a potter’s hands!
    
    
    Even jackals offer the breast;
        they nurse their young;
    but the daughter of my people has become cruel,
        like the ostriches in the wilderness.
    
    
    The tongue of the nursing infant sticks
        to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
    the children beg for food,
        but no one gives to them.
    
    
    Those who once feasted on delicacies
        perish in the streets;
    those who were brought up in purple
        embrace ash heaps.
    
    
    For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater
        than the punishment of Sodom,
    which was overthrown in a moment,
        and no hands were wrung for her.
    
    
    Her princes were purer than snow,
        whiter than milk;
    their bodies were more ruddy than coral,
        the beauty of their form was like sapphire.
    
    
    Now their face is blacker than soot;
        they are not recognized in the streets;
    their skin has shriveled on their bones;
        it has become as dry as wood.
    
    
    Happier were the victims of the sword
        than the victims of hunger,
    who wasted away, pierced
        by lack of the fruits of the field.
    
    
    The hands of compassionate women
        have boiled their own children;
    they became their food
        during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
    
    
    The LORD gave full vent to his wrath;
        he poured out his hot anger,
    and he kindled a fire in Zion
        that consumed its foundations. (ESV)

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

  But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

  Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (ESV)