Lamentations 3:2

"He hath led me, and caused me to walk in darkness,

and not in light.

Surely against me he turneth his hand again,

and again all day.

My flesh and my skin hath he made old;

he hath broken my bones.

He hath builded against me,

and compassed me with gall and travail.

He hath made me to dwell in dark places,

as those that have been long dead."

The language here is loaded with metaphor; but the meaning of it as a description of terrible heartache, misery, suffering and anguish of spirit come through clearly enough. In our sin-cursed world suffering is as certain as death and taxes. "It is a raw, rugged reality. We cannot fully explain it. We cannot evade it. There is always an element of mystery about it. But we can know God in such a way as to be released from it and to rise above it, and also to recognize the disciplinary value of it."[18]

Lamentations 3:6 here is a quotation of Psalms 143:3.