Bible Verses for Grief and Loss: Comfort in Mourning

but he didn’t respect Cain and his offering. Cain was very angry, and the expression on his face fell.

Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Adam knew his wife again. She gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, saying, “for God has given me another child instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.”

The LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.

Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees, while his father Terah was still alive.

Sarai was barren. She had no child.

The days of Terah were two hundred and five years. Terah died in Haran.

Abram said, “Behold, you have given no children to me: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”

The thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight on account of his son.

She went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about a bow shot away. For she said, “Don’t let me see the death of the child.” She sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.

Sarah died in Kiriath Arba (also called Hebron), in the land of Canaan. Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.

Abraham rose up from before his dead and spoke to the children of Heth, saying,

that he may sell me the cave of Machpelah, which he has, which is in the end of his field. For the full price let him sell it to me amongst you as a possession for a burial place.”

After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre (that is, Hebron), in the land of Canaan.

They grieved Isaac’s and Rebekah’s spirits.

When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, my father.”

Esau said to his father, “Do you have just one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, my father.” Esau lifted up his voice, and wept.

Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him. Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send, and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?”

Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good will my life do me?”

In the morning, behold, it was Leah! He said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Didn’t I serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?”

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I will die.”

Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah, his daughter; and his sons were with his livestock in the field. Jacob held his peace until they came.

The sons of Jacob came in from the field when they heard it. The men were grieved, and they were very angry, because he had done folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter, a thing that ought not to be done.

Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak; and its name was called Allon Bacuth.

As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Benoni, but his father named him Benjamin.

Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath (also called Bethlehem).

Jacob set up a pillar on her grave. The same is the Pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day.

Isaac gave up the spirit and died, and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. Esau and Jacob, his sons, buried him.

Reuben returned to the pit, and saw that Joseph wasn’t in the pit; and he tore his clothes.

He returned to his brothers, and said, “The child is no more; and I, where will I go?”

They took the tunic of many colours, and they brought it to their father, and said, “We have found this. Examine it, now, and see if it is your son’s tunic or not.”

He recognised it, and said, “It is my son’s tunic. An evil animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.”

Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “For I will go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” His father wept for him.

Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, until Shelah, my son, is grown up;” for he said, “Lest he also die, like his brothers.” Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.

After many days, Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died. Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheep shearers to Timnah, he and his friend Hirah, the Adullamite.

She arose, and went away, and put off her veil from her, and put on the garments of her widowhood.

Joseph came in to them in the morning, and saw them, and saw that they were sad.

He asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in custody in his master’s house, saying, “Why do you look so sad today?”

and the plenty will not be known in the land by reason of that famine which follows; for it will be very grievous.

They said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is today with our father, and one is no more.”

He turned himself away from them, and wept. Then he returned to them, and spoke to them, and took Simeon from amongst them, and bound him before their eyes.

We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is today with our father in the land of Canaan.’

Jacob, their father, said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children! Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin away. All these things are against me.”

He said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left. If harm happens to him along the way in which you go, then you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”

Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly, telling the man that you had another brother?”

for if we hadn’t delayed, surely we would have returned a second time by now.”

May God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release to you your other brother and Benjamin. If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”

Joseph hurried, for his heart yearned over his brother; and he sought a place to weep. He entered into his room, and wept there.

Then they tore their clothes, and each man loaded his donkey, and returned to the city.

We said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother; and his father loves him.’

One went out from me, and I said, “Surely he is torn in pieces;” and I haven’t seen him since.

If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Sheol.’

it will happen, when he sees that the boy is no more, that he will die. Your servants will bring down the grey hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol.

For how will I go up to my father, if the boy isn’t with me?—lest I see the evil that will come on my father.”

He wept aloud. The Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard.

Now don’t be grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

They told him, saying, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” His heart fainted, for he didn’t believe them.

As for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died beside me in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (also called Bethlehem).”

The archers have severely grieved him, shot at him, and persecuted him:

Joseph fell on his father’s face, wept on him, and kissed him.

Forty days were used for him, for that is how many days it takes to embalm. The Egyptians wept for Israel for seventy days.

When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s staff, saying, “If now I have found favour in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and severe lamentation. He mourned for his father seven days.

When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.” Therefore its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.

Joseph returned into Egypt—he, and his brothers, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

‘You shall tell Joseph, “Now please forgive the disobedience of your brothers, and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ Now, please forgive the disobedience of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

So Joseph died, being one hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.

In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants?

There will be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been, nor will be any more.

Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

They said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you treated us this way, to bring us out of Egypt?

Isn’t this the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

and the children of Israel said to them, “We wish that we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

When the people heard this evil news, they mourned; and no one put on his jewellery.

Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his sons, “Don’t let the hair of your heads go loose, and don’t tear your clothes, so that you don’t die, and so that he will not be angry with all the congregation; but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD has kindled.

“The leper in whom the plague is shall wear torn clothes, and the hair of his head shall hang loose. He shall cover his upper lip, and shall cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’

All the days in which the plague is in him he shall be unclean. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside of the camp.

Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

The mixed multitude that was amongst them lusted exceedingly; and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?

We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic;

Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, every man at the door of his tent; and the LORD’s anger burnt greatly; and Moses was displeased.

Where could I get meat to give all these people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’

If you treat me this way, please kill me right now, if I have found favour in your sight; and don’t let me see my wretchedness.”

“Say to the people, ‘Sanctify yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, and you will eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat.

but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils, and it is loathsome to you; because you have rejected the LORD who is amongst you, and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’”

The name of that place was called Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who lusted.

All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.

All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes.

Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

Now those who died by the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, in addition to those who died about the matter of Korah.

The children of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, “Behold, we perish! We are undone! We are all undone!

The children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month. The people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried there.

The people quarrelled with Moses, and spoke, saying, “We wish that we had died when our brothers died before the LORD!

and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron shall be gathered, and shall die there.”

Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son. Aaron died there on the top of the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.

Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.

Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting.

The sons of Judah: Er and Onan. Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.

Aaron the priest went up into Mount Hor at the commandment of the LORD and died there, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fifth month, on the first day of the month.

Aaron was one hundred and twenty-three years old when he died in Mount Hor.

You returned and wept before the LORD, but the LORD didn’t listen to your voice, nor turn his ear to you.

(The children of Israel travelled from Beeroth Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his place.

You are the children of the LORD your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.

She shall take off the clothing of her captivity, and shall remain in your house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month. After that you shall go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.

Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

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.

You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it.

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

The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.

Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying,

Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before the LORD’s ark until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.

When the LORD’s angel spoke these words to all the children of Israel, the people lifted up their voice and wept.

They called the name of that place Bochim, and they sacrificed there to the LORD.

They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash.

“Through the window she looked out, and cried: Sisera’s mother looked through the lattice. ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why do the wheels of his chariots wait?’

The children of Israel cried to the LORD, saying, “We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baals.”

Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws joined up with Jephthah, and they went out with him.

Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Didn’t you hate me, and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?”

When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I can’t go back.”

Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me. Leave me alone two months, that I may depart and go down on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.”

He said, “Go.” He sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and mourned her virginity on the mountains.

that the daughters of Israel went yearly to celebrate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.

Elon the Zebulunite died, and was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died, and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and childless.

Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, “You just hate me, and don’t love me. You’ve told a riddle to the children of my people, and haven’t told it to me.” He said to her, “Behold, I haven’t told my father or my mother, so why should I tell you?”

She wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted; and on the seventh day, he told her, because she pressed him severely; and she told the riddle to the children of her people.

Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down and took him, and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial site of Manoah his father. He judged Israel twenty years.

He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’”

Then the woman came in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, until it was light.

Her lord rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine had fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.

He said to her, “Get up, and let’s get going!” but no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place.

I took my concubine and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel; for they have committed lewdness and folly in Israel.

The children of Israel went up and wept before the LORD until evening; and they asked of the LORD, saying, “Shall I again draw near to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother?” The LORD said, “Go up against him.”

Then all the children of Israel and all the people went up, and came to Bethel, and wept, and sat there before the LORD, and fasted that day until evening; then they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD.

The people came to Bethel and sat there until evening before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept severely.

They said, “The LORD, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that there should be one tribe lacking in Israel today?”

The children of Israel grieved for Benjamin their brother, and said, “There is one tribe cut off from Israel today.

The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.

Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband.

May The LORD grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices, and wept.

would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for the LORD’s hand has gone out against me.”

They lifted up their voices and wept again; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stayed with her.

She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

He had two wives. The name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

but he gave a double portion to Hannah, for he loved Hannah, but the LORD had shut up her womb.

Her rival provoked her severely, to irritate her, because the LORD had shut up her womb.

So year by year, when she went up to the LORD’s house, her rival provoked her. Therefore she wept, and didn’t eat.

Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why don’t you eat? Why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?”

She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly.

Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have not been drinking wine or strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the LORD.

Don’t consider your servant a wicked woman; for I have been speaking out of the abundance of my complaint and my provocation.”

The man of yours whom I don’t cut off from my altar will consume your eyes and grieve your heart. All the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age.

God’s ark was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

A man of Benjamin ran out of the army and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head.

When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for God’s ark. When the man came into the city and told about it, all the city cried out.

He who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter amongst the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.”

When he made mention of God’s ark, Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke, and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.

His daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to giving birth. When she heard the news that God’s ark was taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth; for her pains came on her.

About the time of her death the women who stood by her said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you have given birth to a son.” But she didn’t answer, neither did she regard it.

She named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel!” because God’s ark was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

She said, “The glory has departed from Israel; for God’s ark has been taken.”

The men who didn’t die were struck with the tumours; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

He struck of the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the LORD’s ark, he struck fifty thousand and seventy of the men. Then the people mourned, because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter.

From the day that the ark stayed in Kiriath Jearim, the time was long—for it was twenty years; and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.

You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves; and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

Then the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, and spoke these words in the ears of the people, then all the people lifted up their voice and wept.

Behold, Saul came following the oxen out of the field; and Saul said, “What ails the people that they weep?” They told him the words of the men of Jabesh.

“It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.” Samuel was angry; and he cried to the LORD all night.

Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death, but Samuel mourned for Saul. The LORD grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.

So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and ate no food the second day of the month; for he was grieved for David, because his father had treated him shamefully.

As soon as the boy was gone, David arose out of the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times. They kissed one another and wept with one another, and David wept the most.

Is that why all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a treaty with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you who is sorry for me, or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?”

Abiathar told David that Saul had slain the LORD’s priests.

It came to pass, when David had finished speaking these words to Saul, that Saul said, “Is that your voice, my son David?” Saul lifted up his voice and wept.

Samuel died; and all Israel gathered themselves together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house at Ramah. Then David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

that this shall be no grief to you, nor offence of heart to my lord, either that you have shed blood without cause, or that my lord has avenged himself. When the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”

In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things; and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.

Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. Saul had sent away those who had familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land.

When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burnt with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters were taken captive.

Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep.

David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the souls of all the people were grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters; but David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.

When his armour bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword, and died with him.

So Saul died with his three sons, his armour bearer, and all his men that same day together.

On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

They cut off his head, stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines all around, to carry the news to the house of their idols and to the people.

They put his armour in the house of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.

When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,

They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

on the third day, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul, with his clothes torn and earth on his head. When he came to David, he fell to the earth and showed respect.

David said to him, “How did it go? Please tell me.” He answered, “The people have fled from the battle, and many of the people also have fallen and are dead. Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.”

He said to me, ‘Please stand beside me, and kill me, for anguish has taken hold of me because my life lingers in me.’

Then David took hold on his clothes and tore them; and all the men who were with him did likewise.

They mourned, wept, and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the LORD, and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son

“Your glory, Israel, was slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!

Don’t tell it in Gath. Don’t publish it in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.

You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain on you, and no fields of offerings; for there the shield of the mighty was defiled and cast away, the shield of Saul was not anointed with oil.

You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you delicately in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your clothing.

How the mighty have fallen in the middle of the battle! Jonathan was slain on your high places.

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women.

How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war have perished!”

However, he refused to turn away. Therefore Abner with the back end of the spear struck him in the body, so that the spear came out behind him; and he fell down there and died in the same place. As many as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died stood still.

Joab returned from following Abner; and when he had gathered all the people together, nineteen men of David’s and Asahel were missing.

They took up Asahel and buried him in the tomb of his father, which was in Bethlehem. Joab and his men went all night, and the day broke on them at Hebron.

Her husband went with her, weeping as he went, and followed her to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, “Go! Return!” and he returned.

David said to Joab and to all the people who were with him, “Tear your clothes, and clothe yourselves with sackcloth, and mourn in front of Abner.” King David followed the bier.

They buried Abner in Hebron; and the king lifted up his voice and wept at Abner’s grave; and all the people wept.

The king lamented for Abner, and said, “Should Abner die as a fool dies?

Your hands weren’t bound, and your feet weren’t put into fetters. As a man falls before the children of iniquity, so you fell.” All the people wept again over him.

All the people came to urge David to eat bread while it was yet day; but David swore, saying, “God do so to me, and more also, if I taste bread or anything else, until the sun goes down.”

The king said to his servants, “Don’t you know that a prince and a great man has fallen today in Israel?

When Saul’s son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands became feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled.

Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news came about Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel; and his nurse picked him up and fled. As she hurried to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.

David was displeased because the LORD had broken out against Uzzah; and he called that place Perez Uzzah to this day.

Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.

After this, the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his place.

The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.”

When Uriah’s wife heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.

David therefore begged God for the child; and David fasted, and went in and lay all night on the ground.

The elders of his house arose beside him, to raise him up from the earth; but he would not, and he didn’t eat bread with them.

On the seventh day, the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him and he didn’t listen to our voice. How will he then harm himself if we tell him that the child is dead?”

But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead; and David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.”

Then his servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child was dead, you rose up and ate bread.”

He said to him, “Why, son of the king, are you so sad from day to day? Won’t you tell me?” Amnon said to him, “I love Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.”

Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her garment of various colours that was on her; and she laid her hand on her head and went her way, crying aloud as she went.

Absalom her brother said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? But now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom’s house.

While they were on the way, the news came to David, saying, “Absalom has slain all the king’s sons, and there is not one of them left!”

Then the king arose, and tore his garments, and lay on the earth; and all his servants stood by with their clothes torn.

Now therefore don’t let my lord the king take the thing to his heart, to think that all the king’s sons are dead; for only Amnon is dead.”

As soon as he had finished speaking, behold, the king’s sons came, and lifted up their voices and wept. The king also and all his servants wept bitterly.

But Absalom fled and went to Talmai the son of Ammihur, king of Geshur. David mourned for his son every day.

King David longed to go out to Absalom, for he was comforted concerning Amnon, since he was dead.

Joab sent to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there, and said to her, “Please act like a mourner, and put on mourning clothing, please, and don’t anoint yourself with oil; but be as a woman who has mourned a long time for the dead.

The king said to her, “What ails you?” She answered, “Truly I am a widow, and my husband is dead.

All the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over. The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over towards the way of the wilderness.

David went up by the ascent of the Mount of Olives, and wept as he went up; and he had his head covered and went barefoot. All the people who were with him each covered his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up.

When David had come to the top, where God was worshipped, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his tunic torn and earth on his head.

David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my son, who came out of my bowels, seeks my life. How much more this Benjamite, now? Leave him alone, and let him curse; for the LORD has invited him.

When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey, arose, and went home to his city, set his house in order, and hanged himself; and he died, and was buried in the tomb of his father.

They took Absalom and cast him into a great pit in the forest, and raised over him a very great heap of stones. Then all Israel fled, each to his own tent.

Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar which is in the king’s valley, for he said, “I have no son to keep my name in memory.” He called the pillar after his own name. It is called Absalom’s monument, to this day.

Joab said to him, “You must not be the bearer of news today, but you must carry news another day. But today you must carry no news, because the king’s son is dead.”

Then Joab said to the Cushite, “Go, tell the king what you have seen!” The Cushite bowed himself to Joab, and ran.

The king was much moved, and went up to the room over the gate and wept. As he went, he said, “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!”

Joab was told, “Behold, the king weeps and mourns for Absalom.”

The victory that day was turned into mourning amongst all the people, for the people heard it said that day, “The king grieves for his son.”

The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!”

Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why don’t you speak a word of bringing the king back?”

Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king; and he had neither groomed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came home in peace.

Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the middle of the highway. When the man saw that all the people stood still, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a garment over him when he saw that everyone who came by him stood still.

Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water poured on them from the sky. She allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day, nor the animals of the field by night.

David slept with his fathers, and was buried in David’s city.

This woman’s child died in the night, because she lay on it.

She arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me while your servant slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.

When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead; but when I had looked at him in the morning, behold, it was not my son whom I bore.”

Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in his father David’s city; and Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.

The prophet took up the body of the man of God, and laid it on the donkey, and brought it back. He came to the city of the old prophet to mourn, and to bury him.

He laid his body in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!”

So when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in at the door, he said, “Come in, Jeroboam’s wife! Why do you pretend to be another? For I am sent to you with heavy news.

Arise therefore, and go to your house. When your feet enter into the city, the child will die.

All Israel will mourn for him and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam will come to the grave, because in him there is found some good thing towards the LORD, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.

Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed, and came to Tirzah. As she came to the threshold of the house, the child died.

All Israel buried him and mourned for him, according to the LORD’s word, which he spoke by his servant Ahijah the prophet.

So Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria; and Ahab his son reigned in his place.

In his days Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho. He laid its foundation with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the LORD’s word, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.

She said, “As the LORD your God lives, I don’t have anything baked, but only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”

After these things, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

She said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, you man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to memory, and to kill my son!”

He cried to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, have you also brought evil on the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”

The king of Israel went to his house sullen and angry, and came to Samaria.

Ahab came into his house sullen and angry because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” He laid himself down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.

When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his body, fasted, lay in sackcloth, and went about despondently.

The battle increased that day. The king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians, and died at evening. The blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of the chariot.

A cry went throughout the army about the going down of the sun, saying, “Every man to his city, and every man to his country!”

So the king died, and was brought to Samaria; and they buried the king in Samaria.

Elisha saw it, and he cried, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” He saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead. You know that your servant feared the LORD. Now the creditor has come to take for himself my two children to be slaves.”

When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon, and then died.

She went up and laid him on the man of God’s bed, and shut the door on him, and went out.

When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to thrust her away; but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is troubled within her; and the LORD has hidden it from me, and has not told me.”

Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me’?”

When Elisha had come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and lying on his bed.

But as one was cutting down a tree, the axe head fell into the water. Then he cried out and said, “Alas, my master! For it was borrowed.”

So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”

When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth underneath on his body.

He settled his gaze steadfastly on him, until he was ashamed. Then the man of God wept.

Hazael said, “Why do you weep, my lord?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You will set their strongholds on fire, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and will dash their little ones in pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.”

Joram slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in David’s city; and Ahaziah his son reigned in his place.

His servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb with his fathers in David’s city.

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring.

Now Elisha became sick with the illness of which he died; and Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over him, and said, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”

Elisha died, and they buried him. Now the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.

They brought him on horses, and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in David’s city.

Azariah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in David’s city; and Jotham his son reigned in his place.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, came with Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him Rabshakeh’s words.

When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the LORD’s house.

He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD, saying,

“Remember now, LORD, I beg you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

When the king had heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes.

because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you,’ says the LORD.

His servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s place.

They killed Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

He burnt the LORD’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burnt every great house with fire.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who were left in the city and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the multitude.

The Chaldeans broke up the pillars of bronze that were in the LORD’s house and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the LORD’s house, and carried the bronze pieces to Babylon.

Azubah died, and Caleb married Ephrath, who bore him Hur.

The sons of Nadab: Seled and Appaim; but Seled died without children.

The sons of Jada the brother of Shammai: Jether and Jonathan; and Jether died without children.

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother named him Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him with sorrow.”

Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to comfort him.

The Philistines followed hard after Saul and after his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.

When his armour bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword and died.

So Saul died with his three sons; and all his house died together.

On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

When all Jabesh Gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul,

all the valiant men arose and took away the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

David was displeased, because the LORD had broken out against Uzza. He called that place Perez Uzza, to this day.

After this, Nahash the king of the children of Ammon died, and his son reigned in his place.

So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.

whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who will each know his own plague and his own sorrow, and shall spread out his hands towards this house,

Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the forty-first year of his reign.

They buried him in his own tomb, which he had dug out for himself in David’s city, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumers’ art; and they made a very great fire for him.

In process of time, at the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, and he died of severe diseases. His people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers.

He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He departed with no one’s regret. They buried him in David’s city, but not in the tombs of the kings.

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring of the house of Judah.

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

When the king had heard the words of the law, he tore his clothes.

because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and against its inhabitants, and have humbled yourself before me, and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you,” says the LORD.

So his servants took him out of the chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and brought him to Jerusalem; and he died, and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day; and they made them an ordinance in Israel. Behold, they are written in the lamentations.

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice. Many also shouted aloud for joy,

so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard far away.

When I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled the hair out of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded.

Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel were assembled to me because of the trespass of the exiles; and I sat confounded until the evening offering.

and I said, “My God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have increased over our head, and our guiltiness has grown up to the heavens.

Now while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before God’s house, there was gathered together to him out of Israel a very great assembly of men and women and children; for the people wept very bitterly.

Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he didn’t eat bread or drink water, for he mourned because of the trespass of the exiles.

They said to me, “The remnant who are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burnt with fire.”

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned several days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven,

In the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, I picked up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad before in his presence.

The king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart.” Then I was very much afraid.

I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why shouldn’t my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates have been consumed with fire?”

When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly, because a man had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.

Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we bring our sons and our daughters into bondage to be servants, and some of our daughters have been brought into bondage. It is also not in our power to help it, because other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “Today is holy to the LORD your God. Don’t mourn, nor weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, with sackcloth, and dirt on them.

It grieved me severely. Therefore I threw all Tobiah’s household stuff out of the room.

After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was pacified, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her.

He brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter; for she had neither father nor mother. The maiden was fair and beautiful; and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter.

Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly.

He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.

In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning amongst the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace his sackcloth, but he didn’t receive it.

Mordecai came back to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and having his head covered.

Esther spoke yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet and begged him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his plan that he had planned against the Jews.

For how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?”

to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had decreed, and as they had imposed upon themselves and their descendants in the matter of the fastings and their mourning.

and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burnt up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.”

Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshipped.

He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat amongst the ashes.

When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognise him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads towards the sky.

So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.

“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’

Let that day be darkness. Don’t let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.

As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice amongst the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.

Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.

Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,

because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

“Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?

Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?

For now I should have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,

with kings and counsellors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;

or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.

“Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,

who long for death, but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,

who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.

“If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?

Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’

“Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances!

For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore my words have been rash.

My soul refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me.

even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?

As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages,

so I am made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good.

The eye of him who sees me will see me no more. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be.

As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more.

He will return no more to his house, neither will his place know him any more.

“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me. My couch will ease my complaint,’

so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.

I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause.

He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.

I am blameless. I don’t respect myself. I despise my life.

“Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good.

They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.

If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up,’

I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that you will not hold me innocent.

I will be condemned. Why then do I labour in vain?

yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes will abhor me.

“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction.

“‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.

I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

Aren’t my days few? Stop! Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,

For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.

though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.

He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.

But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?

so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.

You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away.

His sons come to honour, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them.

But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”

“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?

I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.

I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.

My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids,

My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,

For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.

“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct and the grave is ready for me.

My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.

My days are past. My plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.

If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’

where then is my hope? As for my hope, who will see it?

Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”

He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.

“Even today my complaint is rebellious. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.

“As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter

Those who remain of him will be buried in death. His widows will make no lamentation.

“Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;

“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.

They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.

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

They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.

Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honour as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud.

“Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me.

In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.

He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes.

I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me.

Didn’t I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn’t my soul grieved for the needy?

I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

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

Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.

so that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty food.

His flesh is so consumed away that it can’t be seen. His bones that were not seen stick out.

Yes, his soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers.

They die in youth. Their life perishes amongst the unclean.

I am weary with my groaning. Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.

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

But you do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the fatherless.

For the Chief Musician; upon an eight-stringed lyre. A Psalm of David. Help, LORD; for the godly man ceases. For the faithful fail from amongst the children of men.

How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

For the Chief Musician; set to “The Doe of the Morning.” A Psalm by David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?

My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer; in the night season, and am not silent.

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.

I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death.

For his anger is but for a moment. His favour is for a lifetime. Weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

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

For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.

I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.

When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.

They reward me evil for good, to the bereaving of my soul.

But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting. My prayer returned into my own bosom.

I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother. I bowed down mourning, as one who mourns his mother.

For my iniquities have gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness.

I am in pain and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long.

I am faint and severely bruised. I have groaned by reason of the anguish of my heart.

Lord, all my desire is before you. My groaning is not hidden from you.

My heart throbs. My strength fails me. As for the light of my eyes, it has also left me.

For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me.

For I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin.

I was mute with silence. I held my peace, even from good. My sorrow was stirred.

“Hear my prayer, LORD, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.

For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.

My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”

My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.

I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

But now you rejected us, and brought us to dishonour, and don’t go out with our armies.

You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us amongst the nations.

You sell your people for nothing, and have gained nothing from their sale.

All day long my dishonour is before me, and shame covers my face,

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

Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?

For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our body clings to the earth.

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

My heart is severely pained within me. The terrors of death have fallen on me.

For it was not an enemy who insulted me, then I could have endured it. Neither was it he who hated me who raised himself up against me, then I would have hidden myself from him.

But it was you, a man like me, my companion, and my familiar friend.

You count my wanderings. You put my tears into your container. Aren’t they in your book?

You have shown your people hard things. You have made us drink the wine that makes us stagger.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

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

You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonour. My adversaries are all before you.

Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.

For they persecute him whom you have wounded. They tell of the sorrow of those whom you have hurt.

For my soul was grieved. I was embittered in my heart.

A contemplation by Asaph. God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smoulder against the sheep of your pasture?

We see no miraculous signs. There is no longer any prophet, neither is there amongst us anyone who knows how long.

In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night, and didn’t get tired. My soul refused to be comforted.

I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah.

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!

Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song.

Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep.

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

They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth.

They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them.

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

for they have devoured Jacob, and destroyed his homeland.

You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure.

Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?

Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings.

For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted amongst those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,

set apart amongst the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand.

You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.

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

LORD, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?

I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted.

They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me.

You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.

You have renounced the covenant of your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust.

You have ended his splendour, and thrown his throne down to the ground.

You have shortened the days of his youth. You have covered him with shame. Selah.

Remember how short my time is, for what vanity you have created all the children of men!

What man is he who shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah.

Remember, Lord, the reproach of your servants, how I bear in my heart the taunts of all the mighty peoples,

For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.

The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labour and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away.

Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “They are a people who err in their heart. They have not known my ways.”

A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the LORD. Hear my prayer, LORD! Let my cry come to you.

For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burnt as a torch.

My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.

By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.

I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places.

I watch, and have become like a sparrow that is alone on the housetop.

For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears,

My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.

He weakened my strength along the course. He shortened my days.

Their soul abhors all kinds of food. They draw near to the gates of death.

Again, they are diminished and bowed down through oppression, trouble, and sorrow.

for I am poor and needy. My heart is wounded within me.

I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.

I have also become a reproach to them. When they see me, they shake their head.

The wicked will see it, and be grieved. He shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away. The desire of the wicked will perish.

The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.

DALETH My soul is laid low in the dust. Revive me according to your word!

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.

Streams of tears run down my eyes, because they don’t observe your law.

Woe is me, that I live in Meshech, that I dwell amongst the tents of Kedar!

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

Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.

He who goes out weeping, carrying seed for sowing, will certainly come again with joy, carrying his sheaves.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

On the willows in that land, we hung up our harps.

How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?

LORD, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you?

“As when one ploughs and breaks up the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.”

Look on my right, and see; for there is no one who is concerned for me. Refuge has fled from me. No one cares for my soul.

For the enemy pursues my soul. He has struck my life down to the ground. He has made me live in dark places, as those who have been long dead.

Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate.

The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father; but a foolish son brings grief to his mother.

The heart knows its own bitterness and joy; he will not share these with a stranger.

Even in laughter the heart may be sorrowful, and mirth may end in heaviness.

A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but an aching heart breaks the spirit.

He who becomes the father of a fool grieves. The father of a fool has no joy.

A cheerful heart makes good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

A foolish son brings grief to his father, and bitterness to her who bore him.

A man’s spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?

A foolish son is the calamity of his father. A wife’s quarrels are a continual dripping.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

As one who takes away a garment in cold weather, or vinegar on soda, so is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish, and wine to the bitter in soul.

Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.

Then I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no memory forever, since in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!

So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

I hated all my labour in which I laboured under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.

Therefore I began to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labour in which I had laboured under the sun.

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.

Yes, better than them both is him who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he;

for it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men, and the living should take this to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the face the heart is made good.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

For the living know that they will die, but the dead don’t know anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for their memory is forgotten.

Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has perished long ago; neither do they any longer have a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.

Yes, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity.

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;

yes, they shall be afraid of heights, and terrors will be on the way; and the almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goes to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets;

before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the spring, or the wheel broken at the cistern,

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left, and had gone away. My heart went out when he spoke. I looked for him, but I didn’t find him. I called him, but he didn’t answer.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burnt with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.

Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.

Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread, and wear our own clothing. Just let us be called by your name. Take away our reproach.”

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?

For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

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.

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,

Cry aloud with your voice, daughter of Gallim! Listen, Laishah! You poor Anathoth!

Wail, for the LORD’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped.

Their bows will dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not spare children.

It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.

But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there.

Hyenas will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.

Howl, gate! Cry, city! You are melted away, Philistia, all of you; for smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.

In their streets, they clothe themselves in sackcloth. In their streets and on their housetops, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.

Heshbon cries out with Elealeh. Their voice is heard even to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud. Their souls tremble within them.

My heart cries out for Moab! Her nobles flee to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for they go up by the ascent of Luhith with weeping; for on the way to Horonaim, they raise up a cry of destruction.

For the cry has gone around the borders of Moab, its wailing to Eglaim, and its wailing to Beer Elim.

Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken.

Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen.

Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop.

Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.

In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

The fishermen will lament, and all those who fish in the Nile will mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters will languish.

The pillars will be broken in pieces. All those who work for hire will be grieved in soul.

A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labour. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see.

Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labour to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

In that day, the Lord, the LORD of Armies, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth;

The burden of Tyre. Howl, you ships of Tarshish! For it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in. From the land of Kittim it is revealed to them.

Be ashamed, Sidon; for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying, “I have not travailed, nor given birth, neither have I nourished young men, nor brought up virgins.”

When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report of Tyre.

Pass over to Tarshish! Wail, you inhabitants of the coast!

Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days, whose feet carried her far away to travel?

He said, “You shall rejoice no more, you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, pass over to Kittim. Even there you will have no rest.”

Howl, you ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste!

The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The lofty people of the earth languish.

The new wine mourns. The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh.

The mirth of tambourines ceases. The sound of those who rejoice ends. The joy of the harp ceases.

There is a crying in the streets because of the wine. All joy is darkened. The mirth of the land is gone.

From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs. Glory to the righteous! But I said, “I pine away! I pine away! woe is me!” The treacherous have dealt treacherously. Yes, the treacherous have dealt very treacherously.

Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, LORD.

We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts come around;

then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She shall be to me as an altar hearth.

You will be brought down, and will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust.

Tremble, you women who are at ease! Be troubled, you careless ones! Strip yourselves, make yourselves naked, and put sackcloth on your waist.

Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks,

Behold, their valiant ones cry outside; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.

The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the LORD’s house.

He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

and said, “Remember now, the LORD, I beg you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight.” Then Hezekiah wept bitterly.

I said, “In the middle of my life I go into the gates of Sheol. I am deprived of the residue of my years.”

I said, “I won’t see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver. He will cut me off from the loom. From day even to night you will make an end of me.

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.”

What will I say? He has both spoken to me, and himself has done it. I will walk carefully all my years because of the anguish of my soul.

“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’

But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day: the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.”

Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has conceived these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children and am alone, an exile, and wandering back and forth? Who has brought these up? Behold, I was left alone. Where were these?’”

Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who adorn yourselves with torches around yourselves, walk in the flame of your fire, and amongst the torches that you have kindled. You will have this from my hand: you will lie down in sorrow.

These two things have happened to you— who will grieve with you?— desolation and destruction, and famine and the sword. How can I comfort you?

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.

For the LORD has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off,” says your God.

The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil.

I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners.

We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Amongst those who are strong, we are like dead men.

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

to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,

But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned and became their enemy, and he himself fought against them.

Your holy people possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.

We have become like those over whom you never ruled, like those who were not called by your name.

Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

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

Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit.

“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her. Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn over her;

A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten the LORD their God.

But the shameful thing has devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

For this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of the LORD hasn’t turned back from us.

My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken it. I have planned it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.”

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

“An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land.

I will cut off the beautiful and delicate one, the daughter of Zion.

“Prepare war against her! Arise! Let’s go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness. Violence and destruction is heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before me.

We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labour.

Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come on us.

Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a waste.”

Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says the LORD of Armies.

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

Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me.

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

For the hurt of the daughter of my people, I am hurt. I mourn. Dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then isn’t the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burnt up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

The LORD of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skilful women, that they may come.

Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

Yet hear the LORD’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing. Everyone teach her neighbour a lamentation.

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

Speak, “The LORD says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’”

Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious; but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.”

My tent has been destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone away from me, and they are no more. There is no one to spread my tent any more, to set up my curtains.

How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? Because of the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals and birds are consumed; because they said, “He won’t see our latter end.”

“I have forsaken my house. I have cast off my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest. She has uttered her voice against me. Therefore I have hated her.

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion under foot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

They have made it a desolation. It mourns to me, being desolate. The whole land is made desolate, because no one cares.

But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

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?

“Judah mourns, and its gates languish. They sit in black on the ground. The cry of Jerusalem goes up.

The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them.

“You shall say this word to them: “‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.

For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will mourn you? Who will come to ask of your welfare?

I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways.

Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.

She who has borne seven languishes. She has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded. I will deliver their residue to the sword before their enemies,” says the LORD.

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?

For the LORD says, “Don’t enter into the house of mourning. Don’t go to lament. Don’t bemoan them, for I have taken away my peace from this people,” says the LORD, “even loving kindness and tender mercies.

Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.

Men won’t break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Men won’t give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

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

Cursed is the day in which I was born. Don’t let the day in which my mother bore me be blessed.

Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, “A boy is born to you,” making him very glad.

Let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and didn’t repent. Let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime,

because he didn’t kill me from the womb. So my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.

Why did I come out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

Don’t weep for the dead. Don’t bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he will return no more, and not see his native country.

Therefore the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’

He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed.

Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!

I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die.

But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.”

Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know?

Concerning the prophets: My heart within me is broken. All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the LORD, and because of his holy words.

“For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

The slain of the LORD will be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They won’t be lamented. They won’t be gathered or buried. They will be dung on the surface of the ground.

Wail, you shepherds, and cry. Wallow in dust, you leader of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions have fully come, and you will fall like fine pottery.

A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the leader of the flock, for the LORD destroys their pasture.

For the LORD says, “Your hurt is incurable. Your wound is grievous.

Why do you cry over your injury? Your pain is incurable. For the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you.

They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.

The LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’

The Chaldeans burnt the king’s house and the people’s houses with fire and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the rest of the people who remained.

men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the LORD’s house.

Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went, and as he met them, he said to them, “Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.”

‘If you will still live in this land, then I will build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you.

‘You said, “Woe is me now! For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain! I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.”’

The LORD says: “Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and will become an overflowing stream, and will overflow the land and all that is therein, the city and those who dwell therein. The men will cry, and all the inhabitants of the land will wail.

At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers don’t look back for their children because their hands are so feeble,

Baldness has come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing. You remnant of their valley, how long will you cut yourself?

Of Moab. The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Woe to Nebo! For it is laid waste. Kiriathaim is disappointed. It is taken. Misgab is put to shame and broken down.

The sound of a cry from Horonaim, desolation and great destruction!

Moab is destroyed. Her little ones have caused a cry to be heard.

For they will go up by the ascent of Luhith with continual weeping. For at the descent of Horonaim they have heard the distress of the cry of destruction.

All you who are around him, bemoan him; and all you who know his name, say, ‘How the strong staff is broken, the beautiful rod!’

Moab is disappointed; for it is broken down. Wail and cry! Tell it by the Arnon, that Moab is laid waste.

Therefore I will wail for Moab. Yes, I will cry out for all Moab. They will mourn for the men of Kir Heres.

With more than the weeping of Jazer I will weep for you, vine of Sibmah. Your branches passed over the sea. They reached even to the sea of Jazer. The destroyer has fallen on your summer fruits and on your vintage.

Gladness and joy is taken away from the fruitful field and from the land of Moab. I have caused wine to cease from the wine presses. No one will tread with shouting. The shouting will be no shouting.

From the cry of Heshbon even to Elealeh, even to Jahaz they have uttered their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for the waters of Nimrim will also become desolate.

Therefore my heart sounds for Moab like flutes, and my heart sounds like flutes for the men of Kir Heres. Therefore the abundance that he has gotten has perished.

For every head is bald, and every beard clipped. There are cuttings on all the hands, and sackcloth on the waist.

On all the housetops of Moab, and in its streets, there is lamentation everywhere; for I have broken Moab like a vessel in which no one delights,” says the LORD.

“How it is broken down! How they wail! How Moab has turned the back with shame! So will Moab become a derision and a terror to all who are around him.”

Woe to you, O Moab! The people of Chemosh are undone; for your sons are taken away captive, and your daughters into captivity.

“Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste! Cry, you daughters of Rabbah! Clothe yourself in sackcloth. Lament, and run back and forth amongst the fences; for Malcam will go into captivity, his priests and his princes together.

Of Damascus: “Hamath and Arpad are confounded, for they have heard evil news. They have melted away. There is sorrow on the sea. It can’t be quiet.

How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy?

“In those days, and in that time,” says the LORD, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek the LORD their God.

“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”

A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction.

Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Wail for her! Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed.

“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out.

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

“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He also killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah.

All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great amongst the nations! She who was a princess amongst the provinces has become a slave!

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

The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

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.

Jerusalem has grievously sinned. Therefore she has become unclean. All who honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs and turns backward.

The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

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

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

“For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

“The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

“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.

“Look, LORD; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death.

“They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.

“Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast the beauty of Israel down from heaven to the earth, and hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

He has cut off all the horn of Israel in fierce anger. He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy. He has burnt up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.

He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has stood with his right hand as an adversary. He has killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion, he has poured out his wrath like fire.

The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out the line. He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall lament. They languish together.

Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are amongst the nations where the law is not. Yes, her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My bile is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.

They ask their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom.

What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you?

Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don’t let your eyes rest.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands towards him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

“Look, LORD, 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?

“The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied.

“You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD’s anger. My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.

I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

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

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

He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.

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

He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.

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

He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.

I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.

He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.

He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.

You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity.

Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.

My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.

For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.

For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

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

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

My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,

My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.

You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.”

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

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how they are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

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

The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask for bread, and no one breaks it for them.

Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace dunghills.

Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like wood.

Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

They wander as blind men in the streets. They are polluted with blood, So that men can’t touch their garments.

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

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, under his shadow we will live amongst the nations.

Remember, LORD, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach.

Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens.

We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows.

Servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us out of their hand.

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

They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.

Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honoured.

The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood.

The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music.

The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning.

The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim:

for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it.

Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time?

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

He spread it before me. It was written within and without; and lamentations, mourning, and woe were written in it.

Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel Aviv who lived by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed amongst them seven days.

I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, the LORD, have spoken it.’”

I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols. I will scatter your bones around your altars.

Those of you that escape will remember me amongst the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

“The Lord GOD says: ‘Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, “Alas!”, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

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.

The time has come! The day draws near. Don’t let the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for wrath is on all its multitude.

But 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.

They will also clothe themselves with sackcloth, and horror will cover them. Shame will be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.

The king will mourn, and the prince will be clothed with desolation. The hands of the people of the land will be troubled. I will do to them after their way, and according to their own judgements I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’s house which was towards the north; and I saw the women sit there weeping for Tammuz.

The LORD said to him, “Go through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”

While they were killing, and I was left, I fell on my face, and cried, and said, “Ah Lord GOD! Will you destroy all the residue of Israel in your pouring out of your wrath on Jerusalem?”

When I prophesied, Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then I fell down on my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, “Ah Lord GOD! Will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?”

Because with lies you have grieved the heart of the righteous, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, and be saved alive.

No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, because you were abhorred in the day that you were born.

“Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

“‘Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her cubs, and made him a young lion.

They put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon. They brought him into strongholds, so that his voice should no more be heard on the mountains of Israel.

But it was plucked up in fury. It was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit. Its strong branches were broken off and withered. The fire consumed them.

Fire has gone out of its branches. It has devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong branch to be a sceptre to rule.’ This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”

There you will remember your ways, and all your deeds in which you have polluted yourselves. Then you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed.

“Therefore sigh, you son of man. You shall sigh before their eyes with a broken heart and with bitterness.

Cry and wail, son of man; for it is on my people. It is on all the princes of Israel. They are delivered over to the sword with my people. Therefore beat your thigh.

There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it.

You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria.

“Son of man, behold, I will take away from you the desire of your eyes with one stroke; yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down.

Sigh, but not aloud. Make no mourning for the dead. Bind your headdress on you, and put your sandals on your feet. Don’t cover your lips, and don’t eat mourner’s bread.”

So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. So I did in the morning as I was commanded.

‘Speak to the house of Israel, “The Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword.

You will do as I have done. You won’t cover your lips or eat mourner’s bread.

Your turbans will be on your heads, and your sandals on your feet. You won’t mourn or weep; but you will pine away in your iniquities, and moan one towards another.

“You, son of man, shouldn’t it be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart—their sons and their daughters—

I will cause the noise of your songs to cease. The sound of your harps won’t be heard any more.

“The Lord GOD says to Tyre: ‘Won’t the islands shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made within you?

Then all the princes of the sea will come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling. They will sit on the ground, and will tremble every moment, and be astonished at you.

They will take up a lamentation over you, and tell you, “How you are destroyed, who were inhabited by seafaring men, the renowned city, who was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all who lived there!”

Now the islands will tremble in the day of your fall. Yes, the islands that are in the sea will be dismayed at your departure.’

“You, son of man, take up a lamentation over Tyre;

At the sound of the cry of your pilots, the pasture lands will shake.

All who handle the oars, the mariners and all the pilots of the sea, will come down from their ships. They will stand on the land,

and will cause their voice to be heard over you, and will cry bitterly. They will cast up dust on their heads. They will wallow in the ashes.

They will make themselves bald for you, and clothe themselves with sackcloth. They will weep for you in bitterness of soul, with bitter mourning.

In their wailing they will take up a lamentation for you, and lament over you, saying, ‘Who is there like Tyre, like her who is brought to silence in the middle of the sea?’

“Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and tell him, ‘The Lord GOD says: “You were the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

“Son of man, prophesy, and say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Wail, ‘Alas for the day!’

“The Lord GOD says: ‘In the day when he went down to Sheol, I caused a mourning. I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers. The great waters were stopped. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

‘Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, “You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas. You broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.”

“‘“This is the lamentation with which they will lament. The daughters of the nations will lament with this. They will lament with it over Egypt, and over all her multitude,” says the Lord GOD.’”

“Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her and the daughters of the famous nations, to the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit.

“You, son of man, tell the house of Israel: ‘You say this, “Our transgressions and our sins are on us, and we pine away in them. How then can we live?”’

In the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city has been defeated!”

“‘“Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are completely cut off.’

Then the king, when he heard these words, was very displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he laboured until the going down of the sun to rescue him.

Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting. No musical instruments were brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.

“As for me, Daniel, my spirit was grieved within my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.

I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three whole weeks.

I ate no pleasant food. No meat or wine came into my mouth. I didn’t anoint myself at all, until three whole weeks were fulfilled.

Behold, one in the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips. Then I opened my mouth, and spoke and said to him who stood before me, “My lord, by reason of the vision my sorrows have overtaken me, and I retain no strength.

For ships of Kittim will come against him. Therefore he will be grieved, and will return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and will take action. He will even return, and have regard to those who forsake the holy covenant.

Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away, with all living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky; yes, the fish of the sea also die.

Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!

I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.

Give them—LORD what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.”

The inhabitants of Samaria will be in terror for the calves of Beth Aven, for its people will mourn over it, along with its priests who rejoiced over it, for its glory, because it has departed from it.

Therefore a battle roar will arise amongst your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.

“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused.

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!

The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from the LORD’s house. The priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn.

The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes.

Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered— the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men.

Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

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

LORD, I cry to you, for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burnt all the trees of the field.

“Yet even now,” says the LORD, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”

Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, LORD, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say amongst the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:

“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”

Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways. They will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skilful in lamentation to wailing.

In all vineyards there will be wailing, for I will pass through the middle of you,” says the LORD.

“When a man’s relative carries him, even he who burns him, to bring bodies out of the house, and asks him who is in the innermost parts of the house, ‘Is there yet any with you?’ And he says, ‘No;’ then he will say, ‘Hush! Indeed we must not mention the LORD’s name.’

The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord GOD. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.

Won’t the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

For the Lord, the LORD of Armies, is he who touches the land and it melts, and all who dwell in it will mourn; and it will rise up wholly like the River, and will sink again, like the River of Egypt.

Therefore now, LORD, take, I beg you, my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he was faint and requested for himself that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

For this I will lament and wail. I will go stripped and naked. I will howl like the jackals and mourn like the ostriches.

For her wounds are incurable; for it has come even to Judah. It reaches to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

Don’t tell it in Gath. Don’t weep at all. At Beth Ophrah I have rolled myself in the dust.

Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won’t come out. The wailing of Beth Ezel will take from you his protection.

Therefore you will give a parting gift to Moresheth Gath. The houses of Achzib will be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.

Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture, for they have gone into captivity from you!

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’”

Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counsellor perished, that pains have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail?

Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard. There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig.

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

the horseman charging, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies

It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”

Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.

In that day, says the LORD, there will be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, a wailing from the second quarter, and a great crashing from the hills.

Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the people of Canaan are undone! All those who were loaded with silver are cut off.

The great day of the LORD is near. It is near and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of the LORD. The mighty man cries there bitterly.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,

I will remove those who grieve about the appointed feasts from you. They are a burden and a reproach to you.

‘Who is left amongst you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Isn’t it in your eyes as nothing?

and to speak to the priests of the house of the LORD of Armies and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”

“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?

“but I will scatter them with a whirlwind amongst all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”

Wail, cypress tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down.

A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! For their glory is destroyed—a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

I will pour on David’s house and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication. They will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for his firstborn.

In that day there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo.

The land will mourn, every family apart; the family of David’s house apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;

the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart;

all the families who remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

“This again you do: you cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, because he doesn’t regard the offering any more, neither receives it with good will at your hand.

You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God,’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of Armies?

“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; she wouldn’t be comforted, because they are no more.”

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

When Jesus came into the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd in noisy disorder,

and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you didn’t dance. We mourned for you, and you didn’t lament.’

and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The king was grieved, but for the sake of his oaths and of those who sat at the table with him, he commanded it to be given,

His disciples came, took the body, and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place apart. When the multitudes heard it, they followed him on foot from the cities.

“Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic and suffers grievously; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water.

and they will kill him, and the third day he will be raised up.” They were exceedingly sorry.

So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told their lord all that was done.

But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he was one who had great possessions.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

Behold, your house is left to you desolate.

and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

and will cut him in pieces and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.

Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

As they were eating, he said, “Most certainly I tell you that one of you will betray me.”

They were exceedingly sorrowful, and each began to ask him, “It isn’t me, is it, Lord?”

He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.

Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with me.”

Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Then he went out and wept bitterly.

Then Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that Jesus was condemned, felt remorse, and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

He threw down the pieces of silver in the sanctuary and departed. Then he went away and hanged himself.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

When he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored as healthy as the other.

Always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones.

and had suffered many things by many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse,

While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue ruler’s house, saying, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher any more?”

He came to the synagogue ruler’s house, and he saw an uproar, weeping, and great wailing.

The king was exceedingly sorry, but for the sake of his oaths and of his dinner guests, he didn’t wish to refuse her.

When his disciples heard this, they came and took up his corpse and laid it in a tomb.

He sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Most certainly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.”

Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!”

But his face fell at that saying, and he went away sorrowful, for he was one who had great possessions.

But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days!

They began to be sorrowful, and to ask him one by one, “Surely not I?” And another said, “Surely not I?”

He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be greatly troubled and distressed.

He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.”

He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him.

The rooster crowed the second time. Peter remembered the words that Jesus said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” When he thought about that, he wept.

At the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is, being interpreted, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead long.

He bought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb which had been cut out of a rock. He rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, saw where he was laid.

She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept.

But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they both were well advanced in years.

Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.”

Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

Now when he came near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was carried out, the only born son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with her.

They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, saying, ‘We piped to you, and you didn’t dance. We mourned, and you didn’t weep.’

Standing behind at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

for he had an only born daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as he went, the multitudes pressed against him.

While he still spoke, one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house came, saying to him, “Your daughter is dead. Don’t trouble the Teacher.”

All were weeping and mourning her, but he said, “Don’t weep. She isn’t dead, but sleeping.”

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in God’s Kingdom, and yourselves being thrown outside.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!

But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was very rich.

Jesus, seeing that he became very sad, said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter into God’s Kingdom!

When he came near, he saw the city and wept over it,

saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.

There were therefore seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died childless.

The second took her as wife, and he died childless.

The third took her, and likewise the seven all left no children, and died.

Afterward the woman also died.

Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath to this people.

When he rose up from his prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief,

The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the Lord’s word, how he said to him, “Before the rooster crows you will deny me three times.”

He went out, and wept bitterly.

A great multitude of the people followed him, including women who also mourned and lamented him.

But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

All the multitudes that came together to see this, when they saw the things that were done, returned home beating their breasts.

All his acquaintances and the women who followed with him from Galilee stood at a distance, watching these things.

They entered in, and didn’t find the Lord Jesus’ body.

They talked with each other about all of these things which had happened.

He said to them, “What are you talking about as you walk, and are sad?”

One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things which have happened there in these days?”

But we were hoping that it was he who would redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.

So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead.

So when Jesus came, he found that he had been in the tomb four days already.

Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.

Therefore Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.

Then the Jews who were with her in the house and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.”

Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled,

and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.”

Jesus wept.

Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, “Most certainly I tell you that one of you will betray me.”

Little children, I will be with you a little while longer. You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you can’t come,’ so now I tell you.

But because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart.

Most certainly I tell you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.

Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.

Therefore she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have laid him!”

But Mary was standing outside at the tomb weeping. So as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb,

They asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, and didn’t know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you have affection for me?” Peter was grieved because he asked him the third time, “Do you have affection for me?” He said to him, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I have affection for you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

The young men arose and wrapped him up, and they carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later, his wife, not knowing what had happened, came in.

Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers;

Devout men buried Stephen and lamented greatly over him.

In those days, she became sick and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room.

Peter got up and went with them. When he had come, they brought him into the upper room. All the widows stood by him weeping, and showing the tunics and other garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them.

serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears, and with trials which happened to me by the plots of the Jews;

“Now, behold, I know that you all, amongst whom I went about preaching God’s Kingdom, will see my face no more.

Therefore watch, remembering that for a period of three years I didn’t cease to admonish everyone night and day with tears.

They all wept freely, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him,

sorrowing most of all because of the word which he had spoken, that they should see his face no more. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

When we heard these things, both we and the people of that place begged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?

For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.

that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

Yet if because of food your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don’t destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.

You are arrogant, and didn’t mourn instead, that he who had done this deed might be removed from amongst you.

and those who weep, as though they didn’t weep; and those who rejoice, as though they didn’t rejoice; and those who buy, as though they didn’t possess;

But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow.

For if I make you grieve, then who will make me glad but he who is made to grieve by me?

And I wrote this very thing to you, so that when I came, I wouldn’t have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy would be shared by all of you.

For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made to grieve, but that you might know the love that I have so abundantly for you.

But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in part (that I not press too heavily) to you all.

so that, on the contrary, you should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his excessive sorrow.

as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things.

For though I grieved you with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that my letter made you grieve, though just for a while.

I now rejoice, not that you were grieved, but that you were grieved to repentance. For you were grieved in a godly way, that you might suffer loss by us in nothing.

For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world produces death.

For behold, this same thing, that you were grieved in a godly way, what earnest care it worked in you. Yes, what defence, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, and vindication! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be pure in the matter.

that again when I come my God would humble me before you, and I would mourn for many of those who have sinned before now, and not repented of the uncleanness, sexual immorality, and lustfulness which they committed.

Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

For indeed he was sick nearly to death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow on sorrow.

For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ,

But we, brothers, being bereaved of you for a short season in presence, not in heart, tried even harder to see your face with great desire,

But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

This you know, that all who are in Asia turned away from me, of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.

All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears.

Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved in various trials,

(for that righteous man dwelling amongst them was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds),

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Even so, Amen.

Then I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look in it.

And behold, a pale horse, and the name of he who sat on it was Death. Hades followed with him. Authority over one fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth was given to him.

In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

However much she glorified herself and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, ‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.’

The kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived wantonly with her will weep and wail over her, when they look at the smoke of her burning,

standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgement has come in one hour.’

The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more:

The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning,

saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls!

and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’

They cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her great wealth!’ For she is made desolate in one hour.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”