Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD.
Parallel translations
- WEB Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.
- KJV Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
- NKJV Let us search out and examine our ways, And turn back to the Lord;
- NASB Let’s examine and search out our ways, And let’s return to the Lord.
- NLT Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the Lord.
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
The right response to suffering is to examine our ways and turn back to the Lord in repentance.
Overview
Here the poet calls the community to self-scrutiny and a turning ('return') to Yahweh. Genuine repentance involves both honest examination and a decisive turning from sin to God. This summons anticipates the gospel call to repent and believe, the path of restoration God always honors (Joel 2:13; Acts 3:19).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 21
- 2 Cor 13:5Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Can’t you see for yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you actually fail the test?
- Ps 139:23–24Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns.
- Joel 2:12–13“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”
- Ps 4:4Be angry, yet do not sin; on your bed, search your heart and be still. Selah
- Isa 55:7Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
- Ps 119:59I considered my ways and turned my steps to Your testimonies.
- Hag 1:5–9Now this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Consider carefully your ways.
- Hos 6:1Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.
- Hos 14:1–3Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled by your iniquity.
- 1 Cor 11:28Each one must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.
- 2 Chr 30:9For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and sons will receive mercy in the presence of their captors and will return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful; He will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him.”
- 1 Cor 11:31Now if we judged ourselves properly, we would not come under judgment.
- 2 Chr 30:6So the couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his officials, which read: “Children of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that He may return to those of you who remain, who have escaped the grasp of the kings of Assyria.
- Ezek 18:28Because he considered and turned from all the transgressions he had committed, he will surely live; he will not die.
- Deut 4:30When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice.
- Zech 1:3–4So tell the people that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Return to Me, declares the LORD of Hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of Hosts.’
- Acts 26:20First to those in Damascus and Jerusalem, then to everyone in the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I declared that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds worthy of their repentance.
- Job 34:31–32Suppose someone says to God, ‘I have endured my punishment; I will offend no more.
- Job 11:13–15As for you, if you direct your heart and lift up your hands to Him,
- Hos 12:6But you must return to your God, maintaining love and justice, and always waiting on your God.
- 1 Chr 15:12–13And he said to them, “You are the heads of the Levitical families. You and your relatives must consecrate yourselves so that you may bring the ark of the LORD, the God of Israel, to the place I have prepared for it.
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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 3:40 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
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