Lectionary Calendar
Monday, July 28th, 2025
the Week of Proper 12 / Ordinary 17
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Read the Bible

Good News Translation

Lamentations 3:15

Bitter suffering is all he has given me for food and drink.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

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

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Wormwood;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Bitter Herbs;   Lamentations, Book of;   Plants in the Bible;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Acrostic;   Bitter Herbs;   Lamentations, Book of;   Wormwood;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Gall ;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Hemlock;   Wormwood,;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Wormwood;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Drunken;   Wormwood;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Bitter Herbs;   Wormwood;   Wormwood, the Star;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
He filled me with bitterness,satiated me with wormwood.
Hebrew Names Version
He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
King James Version
He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
English Standard Version
He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
New American Standard Bible
He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink plenty of wormwood.
New Century Version
The Lord filled me with misery; he made me drunk with suffering.
Amplified Bible
He has filled me with bitterness; He has made me drunk with wormwood (bitterness).
World English Bible
He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
Geneva Bible (1587)
He hath filled me with bitternes, & made me drunken with wormewood.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood.
Legacy Standard Bible
He has saturated me with bitterness;He has sated me with wormwood.
Berean Standard Bible
He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.
Contemporary English Version
God has turned my life sour.
Complete Jewish Bible
He has filled me with bitterness, sated me with wormwood.
Darby Translation
He hath sated me with bitterness, he hath made me drunk with wormwood.
Easy-to-Read Version
He gave me this poison to drink. He filled me with this bitter drink.
George Lamsa Translation
He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunken with wormwood.
Lexham English Bible
He has filled me with bitterness, he has drenched me with wormwood.
Literal Translation
He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
He hath fylled me with bytternesse, & geuen me wormwod to drynke.
American Standard Version
He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath sated me with wormwood.
Bible in Basic English
He has made my life nothing but pain, he has given me the bitter root in full measure.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath sated me with wormwood.
King James Version (1611)
Hee hath filled me with bitternesse, hee hath made me drunken with wormewood.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
He hath filled me with bitternesse, and geuen me wormewood to drinke.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
VAU. He has filled me with bitterness, he has drenched me with gall.
English Revised Version
He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath sated me with wormwood.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
He. He fillide me with bitternesses; he gretli fillide me with wermod.
Update Bible Version
He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
Webster's Bible Translation
He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
New English Translation
He has given me my fill of bitter herbs and made me drunk with bitterness.
New King James Version
He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink wormwood.
New Living Translation
He has filled me with bitterness and given me a bitter cup of sorrow to drink.
New Life Bible
He has filled me with bitter feelings. He has made me drunk with wormwood.
New Revised Standard
He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
He hath sated me with bitter things, hath drenched me with wormwood.
Douay-Rheims Bible
He. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath inebriated me with wormwood.
Revised Standard Version
He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
Young's Literal Translation
He hath filled me with bitter things, He hath filled me [with] wormwood.

Contextual Overview

1 I am one who knows what it is to be punished by God. 2 He drove me deeper and deeper into darkness 3 And beat me again and again with merciless blows. 4 He has left my flesh open and raw, and has broken my bones. 5 He has shut me in a prison of misery and anguish. 6 He has forced me to live in the stagnant darkness of death. 7 He has bound me in chains; I am a prisoner with no hope of escape. 8 I cry aloud for help, but God refuses to listen; 9 I stagger as I walk; stone walls block me wherever I turn. 10 He waited for me like a bear; he pounced on me like a lion.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

filled: Lamentations 3:19, Ruth 1:20, Job 9:18, Psalms 60:3, Isaiah 51:17-22, Jeremiah 9:15, Jeremiah 23:15, Jeremiah 25:15-18, Jeremiah 25:27

bitterness: Heb. bitternesses

Reciprocal: 1 Samuel 1:10 - in bitterness of soul Psalms 88:3 - soul Psalms 102:9 - I Have Proverbs 20:17 - his Isaiah 51:20 - full Isaiah 63:6 - make Jeremiah 23:9 - like a drunken Jeremiah 25:16 - General Jeremiah 48:26 - ye him

Cross-References

Genesis 3:1
Now the snake was the most cunning animal that the Lord God had made. The snake asked the woman, "Did God really tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"
Genesis 3:3
"except the tree in the middle of it. God told us not to eat the fruit of that tree or even touch it; if we do, we will die."
Genesis 3:4
The snake replied, "That's not true; you will not die.
Genesis 3:6
The woman saw how beautiful the tree was and how good its fruit would be to eat, and she thought how wonderful it would be to become wise. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, and he also ate it.
Genesis 3:7
As soon as they had eaten it, they were given understanding and realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and covered themselves.
Genesis 3:8
That evening they heard the Lord God walking in the garden, and they hid from him among the trees.
Genesis 3:10
He answered, "I heard you in the garden; I was afraid and hid from you, because I was naked."
Genesis 3:13
The Lord God asked the woman, "Why did you do this?" She replied, "The snake tricked me into eating it."
Genesis 3:14
Then the Lord God said to the snake, "You will be punished for this; you alone of all the animals must bear this curse: From now on you will crawl on your belly, and you will have to eat dust as long as you live.
Genesis 3:15
I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring's heel."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

He hath filled me with bitterness,.... Or "with bitternesses" m; instead of food, bitter herbs; the allusion perhaps is to the bitter herbs eaten at the passover, and signify bitter afflictions, sore calamities, of which the prophet and his people had their fill. The Targum is,

"with the gall of serpents;''

see Job 20:14;

he hath made me drunken with wormwood; with wormwood drink; but this herb being a wholesome one, though bitter, some think that henbane, or wolfsbane, is rather meant, which is of a poisonous and intoxicating nature; it is no unusual thing for persons to be represented as drunk with affliction, Isaiah 51:17.

m במרורים "amaritudinibus", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Michaelis, "amaroribus", Cocceius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Having dwelt upon the difficulties which hemmed in his path, he now shows that there are dangers attending upon escape.

Lamentations 3:11

The meaning is, “God, as a lion, lying in wait, has made me turn aside from my path, but my flight was in vain, for springing upon me from His ambush lie has torn me in pieces.”

Desolate - Or, astonied, stupefied that he cannot flee. The word is a favorite one with Jeremiah.

Lamentations 3:12

This new simile arises out of the former one, the idea of a hunter being suggested by that of the bear and lion. When the hunter comes, it is not to save him.

Lamentations 3:14

Metaphor is dropped, and Jeremiah shows the real nature of the arrows which rankled in him so deeply.

Lamentations 3:15

“He hath” filled me to the full with bitterness, i. e. bitter sorrows Job 9:18.

Lamentations 3:16

Broken my teeth with gravel stones - His bread was so filled with grit that in eating it his teeth were broken.

Lamentations 3:17

Prosperity - literally, as in the margin, i. e. I forgot what good was, I lost the very idea of what it meant.

Lamentations 3:18

The prophet reaches the verge of despair. But by struggling against it he reaches at length firm ground.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 15. He hath filled me with bitterness — במרורים bimrorim, with bitternesses, bitter upon bitter.

He hath made me drunken with wormwood. — I have drunk the cup of misery till I am intoxicated with it. Almost in all countries, and in all languages, bitterness is a metaphor to express trouble and affliction. The reason is, there is nothing more disagreeable to the taste than the one; and nothing more distressing to the mind than the other. An Arabic poet. Amralkeis, one of the writers of the Moallakat, terms a man grievously afflicted [Arabic] a pounder of wormwood.


 
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