Give them a veiled heart; Your curse be upon them!
Parallel translations
- WEB You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
- KJV Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
- BSB Put a veil of anguish over their hearts; may Your curse be upon them!
- NASB You will give them shamelessness of heart, Your curse will be on them.
- NLT Give them hard and stubborn hearts, and then let your curse fall on them!
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 asks God to give his enemies hardness of heart and to place His curse on them.
Overview
This continues the imprecation, asking that the persecutors come under divine judgment and 'hardness of heart.' Faithful readers understand such pleas as a longing for God's justice against persistent, unrepentant evil, voiced honestly to God. The New Testament both affirms God's just judgment and calls believers to pray for enemies' repentance (Matt. 5:44; 2 Thess. 1:6).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Isa 6:10Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.”
- Deut 2:30But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him; for Yahweh your God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into your hand, as it is today.
- 1 Cor 16:22If any man doesn’t love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Come, Lord!
- Ps 109:17–18Yes, he loved cursing, and it came to him. He didn’t delight in blessing, and it was far from him.
- Deut 27:15–26‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 3:65 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.