Perhaps There is Hope: A Tisha B'Av Supplement | Page 58

22 Vindictive foes have done away with children I struggled to raise and to nurture. On the Lord’ s day of Wrath, none survived eXtermination, none whom You called to account escaped Your blaZing fury.
CHAPTER 3
1 Affliction has been my constant lot, subject to the rod of God’ s own wrath. 2 Absolute darkness drives my destiny, impels me to my fate. 3 Again and again, throughout the day, His hand has struck at me.
4 Beaten until my flesh and skin are worn away, He has broken my bones. 5 Buffeted by misfortune, I am immured in my own misery. 6 Benighted as those long dead, I dwell in gloom and obscurity.
7 Confined as I am, I cannot escape. My chains weigh heavily upon me. 8 Cry and plead as I may, my prayers go unheeded. 9 Confounding my path with great obstacles, He has left me nowhere to turn.
10 Doom portends from the Lord; He is a bear on the hunt, a prowling lion. 11 Disrupting my life’ s course, He has left me in a wretched state. 12 Deploying His bow against me, He takes aim and looses His arrows.
13 Eviscerated am I by the lethal cache within his quiver. 14 Enduring the mockery of the nations, I am made a laughingstock. 15 Enduring a full portion of bitterness, I have had my fill of gall.
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