Read the passage and its setting
Lamentations 3:13-18, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Lamentations 3:13-18
Piercing Pain, Mockery, Bitterness, and Lost Hope
The Main Point
The afflicted voice moves from arrows inside the body and communal mockery to forced bitterness, broken teeth, ashes, lost peace, forgotten good, and an explicit conclusion that both strength and hope from the LORD are gone.
What Is Happening Here?
The famous hope of 3:22-24 must not be read backward to silence verse 18. The poem deliberately records hope as extinguished before recollection changes the speaker's stance.
What Came Before—and What Comes Next?
The speaker experiences every exit and prayer as blocked, then portrays God through predator and archer images that leave him torn, desolate, and placed as the target.
Memory initially keeps wormwood and misery present, but the speaker deliberately recalls the LORD's loyal mercies, unfailing compassions, renewed care, faithfulness, and covenantal portion; hope re-enters as a chosen, fragile stance.
Follow the Poems' Movement
See why this section appears here and how the author's lament leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
The opening complaint reaches its lowest stated conclusion, making later hope a fragile turn within—not a denial of—despair.
Follow the Lament
Arrows penetrate the speaker's inner body.
His own people make him a song and derision.
Bitterness, wormwood, gravel, and ashes invade taste and body.
Peace and remembered good disappear, and hope is declared perished.
What Is the Author Saying?
Why This Interpretation Fits
Movement 1
Arrows penetrate the speaker's inner body.
Movement 2
His own people make him a song and derision.
Movement 3
Bitterness, wormwood, gravel, and ashes invade taste and body.
Movement 4
Peace and remembered good disappear, and hope is declared perished.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
Words That Matter
kidneys / inner parts
כִּלְיוֹת · kilyot
The arrow reaches the body's hidden center in ancient idiom.
wormwood
לַעֲנָה · laanah
The bitter plant gives suffering a toxic taste.
hope / expectation
תּוֹחֶלֶת · tokhelet
The speaker explicitly says expectation from the LORD has perished before the turn in verse 21.
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading Lamentations 3:13-18 inside its complete poem and the five-poem collection rules out these harmful uses:
This unit does not make despair shameful or require a sufferer to quote later hope immediately.
Bitter bodily imagery does not invite reenactment, endurance tests, or romanticizing trauma.
Public mockery does not become harmless because the book later speaks of mercy.
Context check: The speaker reaches a point where remembered goodness and expectation from God appear extinguished, and the poem makes readers stay there before any turn.
What Remains True Today
Honest care lets despair be spoken without treating it as the person's final identity or moral failure.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
The afflicted voice moves from arrows inside the body and communal mockery to forced bitterness, broken teeth, ashes, lost peace, forgotten good, and an explicit conclusion that both strength and hope from the LORD are gone.
The speaker reaches a point where remembered goodness and expectation from God appear extinguished, and the poem makes readers stay there before any turn.
Honest care lets despair be spoken without treating it as the person's final identity or moral failure.
How should this shape us today?
Listen, assess safety, and support someone who says hope is gone; do not answer before understanding the suffering that produced the statement.
A Concrete Example
A study can pause at verse 18 and offer crisis-support information before moving to verse 19.
Teach It Back
Explain Lamentations 3:13-18 in your own words. Include its poetic movement, one material uncertainty, one vulnerable person or group centered by the text, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Movement 1
Arrows penetrate the speaker's inner body.
Movement 2
His own people make him a song and derision.
Movement 3
Bitterness, wormwood, gravel, and ashes invade taste and body.
Movement 4
Peace and remembered good disappear, and hope is declared perished.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
kidneys / inner parts
The arrow reaches the body's hidden center in ancient idiom.
How certain? probablewormwood
The bitter plant gives suffering a toxic taste.
How certain? probablehope / expectation
The speaker explicitly says expectation from the LORD has perished before the turn in verse 21.
How certain? probableWhat the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
587/586 BCE horizon and dating limits
Mockery, deprivation, and bodily harm fit catastrophe, but the poetic sequence cannot be converted into one medical or prison record.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
KJV wording and material alternatives
KJV 'reins' means kidneys or inner parts. 'Strength' in 3:18 may be endurance, splendor, or confidence. The final phrase explicitly relates lost hope to the LORD.
How certain? probableEarlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Lamentations within Israel's Scriptures
Job and lament Psalms also bring loss of hope into prayer. Later biblical hope does not delete this canonical sentence.
How certain? strongHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Responsible canonical connections
Job and lament Psalms also bring loss of hope into prayer. Later biblical hope does not delete this canonical sentence. Responsible canonical comparison must preserve this unit's speaker, poetic form, and historical horizon.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
Textual, grammatical, and poetic care
The exact nuance of the rare noun in 3:18 is disputed, and mockers may be fellow people or a broader group. The loss of peace, good, and hope is unmistakable.
How certain? probableWhere careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The exact nuance of the rare noun in 3:18 is disputed, and mockers may be fellow people or a broader group. The loss of peace, good, and hope is unmistakable.
How certain? probableTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
Scripture includes the declaration that hope has perished, preserving faith's crisis rather than editing it out.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
This unit contributes to the collection's movement through witness, protest, confession, prayer, fragile hope, and unresolved grief: The afflicted voice moves from arrows inside the body and communal mockery to forced bitterness, broken teeth, ashes, lost peace, forgotten good, and an explicit conclusion that both strength and hope from the LORD are gone.
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
This unit does not make despair shameful or require a sufferer to quote later hope immediately.
One vivid judgment or shame image can seem easier to repeat than the poem's full voice and human cost.
The speaker reaches a point where remembered goodness and expectation from God appear extinguished, and the poem makes readers stay there before any turn.
Honest care lets despair be spoken without treating it as the person's final identity or moral failure.
This unit does not make despair shameful or require a sufferer to quote later hope immediately.
Bitter bodily imagery does not invite reenactment, endurance tests, or romanticizing trauma.
A single confession or hope line can be detached from protest, agency, and unresolved suffering.
The speaker reaches a point where remembered goodness and expectation from God appear extinguished, and the poem makes readers stay there before any turn.
Honest care lets despair be spoken without treating it as the person's final identity or moral failure.
Bitter bodily imagery does not invite reenactment, endurance tests, or romanticizing trauma.
Public mockery does not become harmless because the book later speaks of mercy.
Ancient enemy and body language can be transferred carelessly into a modern target or rule.
The speaker reaches a point where remembered goodness and expectation from God appear extinguished, and the poem makes readers stay there before any turn.
Honest care lets despair be spoken without treating it as the person's final identity or moral failure.
Public mockery does not become harmless because the book later speaks of mercy.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and canonical verse coverage.
Lamentations 3:13-18, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, alphabet sequence, person and number, repeated vocabulary, and translation questions.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lam.xml, OSIS Lam.3.13-Lam.3.18
Supports: Verse-level Hebrew, syntax, textual, acrostic, literary, historical, and translation notes.
NET Bible Lamentations PDF, printed pp. 1565-1571, translation and notes on 3:13-18
Supports: Five-poem form, historical horizon, voice, judgment, Daughter Zion, chapter 3, famine, hope alternatives, and the unresolved ending.
Joyce, 'Lamentations,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 531-532, discussion of poem 3 and 3:13-18
Supports: Trauma-informed analysis of voice, embodiment, humiliation, divine and human agency, children, famine, resistance, memory, and fragile hope.
Yansen, Daughter Zion's Trauma, printed pp. 111-151 and 203-245 on acrostic structure, shifting voices, affliction, judgment, protest, and communal survival; applied to 3:13-18
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and canonical verse coverage.
Exact location: Lamentations 3:13-18, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Lamentations
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, alphabet sequence, person and number, repeated vocabulary, and translation questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lam.xml, OSIS Lam.3.13-Lam.3.18
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Lamentations with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level Hebrew, syntax, textual, acrostic, literary, historical, and translation notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Lamentations PDF, printed pp. 1565-1571, translation and notes on 3:13-18
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Lamentations
Paul M. Joyce
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Five-poem form, historical horizon, voice, judgment, Daughter Zion, chapter 3, famine, hope alternatives, and the unresolved ending.
Exact location: Joyce, 'Lamentations,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 531-532, discussion of poem 3 and 3:13-18
Open source ↗doctoral dissertation and trauma reading
Daughter Zion's Trauma: Reading Lamentations with Insights from Trauma Studies
James Washington Sydgrave Yansen, Jr.
Boston University School of Theology / OpenBU, 2016
Supports: Trauma-informed analysis of voice, embodiment, humiliation, divine and human agency, children, famine, resistance, memory, and fragile hope.
Exact location: Yansen, Daughter Zion's Trauma, printed pp. 111-151 and 203-245 on acrostic structure, shifting voices, affliction, judgment, protest, and communal survival; applied to 3:13-18
Open source ↗