And I said, “My strength and my hope Have perished from the Lord.”
Parallel translations
- WEB I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from Yahweh.”
- KJV And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:
- BSB So I say, “My strength has perished, along with my hope from the LORD.”
- NASB So I say, “My strength has failed, And so has my hope from the Lord.”
- NLT I cry out, “My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”
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
He concludes that his strength and his hope in the LORD have perished. It marks the depth of despair just before faith revives.
Overview
The sufferer reaches the bottom: 'My strength has perished, along with my expectation from Yahweh.' This is the honest low point where hope itself seems gone. Yet this very verse is the turning point, for the next words begin to recall God's character. Faith often passes through such darkness before it lays hold again of God's faithfulness in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Job 17:15where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
- 1 Sam 27:1David said in his heart, “I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel. So shall I escape out of his hand.”
- Job 6:11What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient?
- Ps 116:11I said in my haste, “All men are liars.”
- Ps 31:22As for me, I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before your eyes.” Nevertheless you heard the voice of my petitions when I cried to you.
- Ezek 37:11Then 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 clean cut off.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 3:18 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.