Lectionary Calendar
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025
the Week of Proper 11 / Ordinary 16
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Read the Bible

The NET Bible®

Lamentations 5:3

We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers have become widows.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Orphan;   Patriotism;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Fatherless;   Widows;  

Dictionaries:

- Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Orphan;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Orphans;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Fatherless;   Lamentations, Book of;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Fatherless;   Orphan;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
We have become orphans, fatherless;our mothers are widows.
Hebrew Names Version
We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
King James Version
We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
English Standard Version
We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
New American Standard Bible
We have become orphans, without a father; Our mothers are like widows.
New Century Version
We are like orphans with no father; our mothers are like widows.
Amplified Bible
We have become orphans without a father; Our mothers are like widows.
World English Bible
We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
Geneva Bible (1587)
We are fatherles, euen without father, and our mothers are as widowes.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
We have become orphans without a father, Our mothers are like widows.
Legacy Standard Bible
We have become orphans without a father;Our mothers are like widows.
Berean Standard Bible
We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.
Contemporary English Version
We are like children whose mothers are widows.
Complete Jewish Bible
We have become fatherless orphans, our mothers now are widows.
Darby Translation
We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
Easy-to-Read Version
We have become orphans. We have no father. Our mothers have become like widows.
George Lamsa Translation
We have become orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
Good News Translation
Our fathers have been killed by the enemy, and now our mothers are widows.
Lexham English Bible
We have become orphans, fatherless, our mothers are like widows.
Literal Translation
We are orphans. There is no father; our mothers are like widows.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
We are become carefull and fatherlesse, and oure mothers are as the wydowes.
American Standard Version
We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
Bible in Basic English
We are children without fathers, our mothers are like widows.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
We are become orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
King James Version (1611)
We are orphanes and fatherlesse, our mothers are as widowes.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
We are become carefull and fatherlesse, and our mothers are as the wydowes.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
we are become orphans, we have no father, our mothers are as widows.
English Revised Version
We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
We ben maad fadirles children with out fadir; oure modris ben as widewis.
Update Bible Version
We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
Webster's Bible Translation
We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers [are] as widows.
New King James Version
We have become orphans and waifs, Our mothers are like widows.
New Living Translation
We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed.
New Life Bible
We have lost our fathers. Our mothers are like those who have lost their husbands.
New Revised Standard
We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Orphans, have we become, and fatherless, our mothers, are widows indeed.
Douay-Rheims Bible
We are become orphans without a father: our mothers are as widows.
Revised Standard Version
We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
Young's Literal Translation
Orphans we have been -- without a father, our mothers [are] as widows.

Contextual Overview

1 O Lord , reflect on what has happened to us; consider and look at our disgrace. 2 Our inheritance is turned over to strangers; foreigners now occupy our homes. 3 We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers have become widows. 4 We must pay money for our own water; we must buy our own wood at a steep price. 5 We are pursued—they are breathing down our necks; we are weary and have no rest. 6 We have submitted to Egypt and Assyria in order to buy food to eat. 7 Our forefathers sinned and are dead, but we suffer their punishment. 8 Slaves rule over us; there is no one to rescue us from their power. 9 At the risk of our lives we get our food because robbers lurk in the countryside. 10 Our skin is hot as an oven due to a fever from hunger.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Exodus 22:24, Jeremiah 18:21, Hosea 14:3

Reciprocal: Psalms 109:9 - General Jeremiah 6:12 - And their John 14:18 - comfortless

Cross-References

Genesis 4:25
And Adam had marital relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son. She named him Seth, saying, "God has given me another child in place of Abel because Cain killed him."
Genesis 5:2
He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them "humankind."
Genesis 5:3
When Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.
Genesis 5:14
The entire lifetime of Kenan was 910 years, and then he died.
Genesis 5:16
Mahalalel lived 830 years after he became the father of Jared, and he had other sons and daughters.
Job 14:4
Who can make a clean thing come from an unclean? No one!
Job 25:4
How then can a human being be righteous before God? How can one born of a woman be pure?
Psalms 51:5
Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.
Luke 1:35
The angel replied, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God.
John 3:6
What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

We are orphans and fatherless,.... In every sense; in a natural sense, their fathers having been cut off by the sword, famine, or pestilence; in a civil sense, their king being taken from them; and in a religious sense, God having forsaken them for their sins:

our mothers [are] as widows; either really so, their husbands being dead; or were as if they had no husbands, they not being able to provide for them, protect and deferred them. The Targum adds,

"whose husbands are gone to the cities of the sea, and it is doubtful whether they are alive.''

Some understand this politically, of their cities being desolate and defenceless.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Our mothers are as widows - The particle “as” suggests that the whole verse is metaphorical. Our distress and desolation is comparable only to that of fatherless orphans or wives just bereaved of their husbands.


 
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