Lectionary Calendar
Wednesday, July 16th, 2025
the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
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Read the Bible

Easy-to-Read Version

Lamentations 3:5

He built up bitterness and trouble against me. He surrounded me with bitterness and trouble.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Afflictions and Adversities;   Despondency;   Pain;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Judgments;  

Dictionaries:

- Easton Bible Dictionary - Poison;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Lamentations, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Acrostic;   Lamentations, Book of;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Gall;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Hemlock;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Builder;   Gall;   Travail;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
He has laid siege against me,encircling me with bitterness and hardship.
Hebrew Names Version
He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
King James Version
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
English Standard Version
he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
New American Standard Bible
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
New Century Version
He surrounded me with sadness and attacked me with grief.
Amplified Bible
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
World English Bible
He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Geneva Bible (1587)
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall, and labour.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.
Legacy Standard Bible
He has besieged and encompassed me with gall and hardship.
Berean Standard Bible
He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
Contemporary English Version
He attacked and surrounded me with hardships and trouble;
Complete Jewish Bible
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
Darby Translation
He hath built against me, and encompassed [me] with gall and toil.
George Lamsa Translation
He has built ramparts against me, and compassed me with bitterness and travail.
Good News Translation
He has shut me in a prison of misery and anguish.
Lexham English Bible
He has besieged and engulfed me with bitterness and hardship.
Literal Translation
He built against me and has put around me bitterness and hardship.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
He hath buylded rounde aboute me, & closed me in with gall and trauayle.
American Standard Version
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Bible in Basic English
He has put up a wall against me, shutting me in with bitter sorrow.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
King James Version (1611)
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and trauel.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
He hath buylded rounde about me, and closed me in with gall and trauaile.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
BETH. He has built against me, and compassed my head, and brought travail upon me.
English Revised Version
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Beth. He bildid in my cumpas, and he cumpasside me with galle and trauel.
Update Bible Version
He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Webster's Bible Translation
He hath built against me, and compassed [me] with gall and labor.
New English Translation
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitter hardship.
New King James Version
He has besieged me And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
New Living Translation
He has besieged and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
New Life Bible
He has shut me in with trouble and suffering.
New Revised Standard
he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
He hath built up against me, and carried round me, fortifications and a trench;
Douay-Rheims Bible
Beth. He hath built round about me, and he hath compassed me with gall, and labour.
Revised Standard Version
he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
Young's Literal Translation
He hath built up against me, And setteth round poverty and weariness.

Contextual Overview

1 I am a man who has seen much trouble. God beat us with a stick, and I saw it happen. 2 He led and brought me into darkness, not light. 3 He turned his hand against me. He did this again and again, all day. 4 He wore out my flesh and skin. He broke my bones. 5 He built up bitterness and trouble against me. He surrounded me with bitterness and trouble. 6 He put me in the dark, like someone who died long ago. 7 He shut me in, so I could not get out. He put heavy chains on me. 8 Even when I cry out and ask for help, he does not listen to my prayer. 9 He has blocked up my path with stones. He has made my path crooked. 10 He is like a bear about to attack me, like a lion that is in a hiding place.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

builded: Lamentations 3:7-9, Job 19:8

gall: Lamentations 3:19, Psalms 69:21, Jeremiah 8:14, Jeremiah 9:15, Jeremiah 23:15

Reciprocal: Psalms 88:17 - They Acts 8:23 - the gall Revelation 8:11 - Wormwood

Cross-References

Genesis 2:17
But you must not eat from the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil. If you eat fruit from that tree, on that day you will certainly die!"
Genesis 3:2
The woman answered the snake, "No, we can eat fruit from the trees in the garden.
Genesis 3:3
But there is one tree we must not eat from. God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch that tree, or you will die.'"
Genesis 3:6
The woman could see that the tree was beautiful and the fruit looked so good to eat. She also liked the idea that it would make her wise. So she took some of the fruit from the tree and ate it. Her husband was there with her, so she gave him some of the fruit, and he ate it.
Genesis 3:7
Then it was as if their eyes opened, and they saw things differently. They saw that they were naked. So they got some fig leaves, sewed them together, and wore them for clothes.
Genesis 3:10
The man said, "I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid. I was naked, so I hid."
Genesis 3:13
Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What have you done?" She said, "The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit."
Genesis 3:14
So the Lord God said to the snake, "You did this very bad thing, so bad things will happen to you. It will be worse for you than for any other animal. You must crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.
Genesis 3:15
I will make you and the woman enemies to each other. Your children and her children will be enemies. You will bite her child's foot, but he will crush your head."
Genesis 3:22
The Lord God said, "Look, the man has become like us—he knows about good and evil. And now the man might take the fruit from the tree of life. If the man eats that fruit, he will live forever."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

He hath builded against me,.... Fortresses, as the Targum adds; as when forts and batteries were raised by the Chaldeans against the city of Jerusalem, in which the prophet was:

and compassed [me] with gall and travail; or "weariness" e; the same with gall and wormwood, Lamentations 3:19; as Jarchi observes. The sense is, he was surrounded with sorrow, affliction, and misery, which were as disagreeable as gall; or like poison that drank up his spirits, and made him weary of his life. Thus our Lord was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; περιλυπος, encompassed with sorrows, Matthew 26:38. The Targum is,

"he hath surrounded the city, and rooted up the heads of the people, and caused them to fail.''

e ותלאה "et fatigatione", Montanus, Vatablus, Castalio.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He hath builded ... - The metaphor is taken from the operations in a siege.

Gall and travail - Or “travail;” i. e. bitterness and weariness (through toil).

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Lamentations 3:5. He hath builded against me — Perhaps there is a reference here to the mounds and ramparts raised by the Chaldeans in order to take the city.


 
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