The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
Parallel translations
- WEB The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.
- BSB Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
- NKJV The joy of our heart has ceased; Our dance has turned into mourning.
- NASB The joy of our hearts has ended; Our dancing has been turned into mourning.
- NLT Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.
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
All gladness is gone, and their dancing has been replaced by mourning. The verse names the total loss of joy.
Overview
The joy that once filled their hearts has ceased, and festive dance has become grief—a complete inversion of celebration into lament. This captures the emotional desolation of a people under judgment. Yet the same God who turns joy to mourning is the One who, in Christ, turns mourning into dancing for those He redeems (Psalm 30:11).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Amos 8:10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
- Jer 25:10Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.
- Ps 30:11Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
- Amos 6:4–7That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;
- Jas 4:9–10Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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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 5:15 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.