My wound is severe, and my grief is great. My sickness is incurable, but I must bear it.
Parallel translations
- WEB Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious: but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.”
- KJV Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.
- BSB Woe to me because of my brokenness; my wound is grievous! But I said, “This is truly my sickness, and I must bear it.”
- NKJV Woe is me for my hurt! My wound is severe. But I say, “Truly this is an infirmity, And I must bear it.”
- NASB ¶Woe to me, because of my injury! My wound is incurable. But I said, “This certainly is a sickness, And I must endure it.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A voice laments a grievous, incurable wound yet resolves to bear it. The people, or the prophet on their behalf, accept the sorrow of judgment.
Overview
The speaker—likely Jerusalem personified or the prophet voicing her grief—cries over a serious injury and submits to bearing it as their lot. The lament mingles pain with a sober acceptance that the suffering is deserved. The verse models honest grief under God's chastening hand and a measure of submission that, rightly directed, opens toward repentance and hope.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Mic 7:9I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I will see his righteousness.
- Jer 14:17“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.
- Lam 3:18–21I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from Yahweh.”
- Lam 3:39–40Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
- Jer 4:31For 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.”
- Ps 39:9I was mute. I didn’t open my mouth, because you did it.
- Jer 9:1Oh 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!
- Isa 8:17I will wait for Yahweh, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
- Ps 77:10Then I thought, “I will appeal to this: the years of the right hand of the Most High.”
- Jer 4:19My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can’t hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
- Jer 8:21For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I mourn; dismay has taken hold on me.
- Lam 3:48My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Jer 17:13Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters.
- Lam 2:11–22My eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver 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.
- Lam 1:12–22“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 Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
- Lam 1:2She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 10:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.