Lamentations 1:20
Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.
The chapter is an acrostic in Hebrew, with its verses beginning in the order of the alphabet, a poetic arrangement that does not appear in English translation. It is Jeremiah's lament over the ruin of his people, giving voice to the sorrow and grief that darkened his life as he beheld the calamity he had foretold. It is also Israel's funeral song, sung in a strange land to mourn the nation's lost glory, a former glory that never returned.
The verse is a confession of having grievously rebelled against God, uttered in deep distress. That distress joins inward anguish, with troubled inner parts and a heart turned within, to violent loss without and deathlike suffering at home. Outside the sword bereaves and destroys, while inside there is as death and death rules.
The verse is the cry of the haughty when humbled, which must come before the Word is welcomed and light enters. For a nation departed from the living God and fixed in doom from internal causes, such humbling prepares the way for the Lord to arise upon it and for His glory to be seen. So humbled, it becomes a light to which Gentiles come.