but I warned them, “Why are you camping in front of the wall? If you do it again, I’ll use force against you.” After that they did not come again on the Sabbath.

Why then should we hear about you doing all this terrible evil and acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?”

The members of the royal staff at the King’s Gate asked Mordecai, “Why are you disobeying the king’s command?”

Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to her, and dispatched him to Mordecai to learn what he was doing and why.

This explains why the rural Jews who live in villages observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a time of rejoicing and feasting. It is a holiday when they send gifts to one another.

Why was I not stillborn;
why didn’t I die as I came from the womb?

Why did the knees receive me,
and why were there breasts for me to nurse?

Or why was I not hidden like a miscarried child,
like infants who never see daylight?

Why is light given to one burdened with grief,
and life to those whose existence is bitter,

Why is life given to a man whose path is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?

For then it would outweigh the sand of the seas!
That is why my words are rash.

If I have sinned, what have I done to You,
Watcher of mankind?
Why have You made me Your target,
so that I have become a burden to You?

Why not forgive my sin
and pardon my transgression?
For soon I will lie down in the grave.
You will eagerly seek me, but I will be gone.

Since I will be found guilty,
why should I labor in vain?

I will say to God:
“Do not declare me guilty!
Let me know why You prosecute me.

“Why did You bring me out of the womb?
I should have died and never been seen.

Why do I put myself at risk
and take my life in my own hands?

Why do You hide Your face
and consider me Your enemy?

Why has your heart misled you,
and why do your eyes flash

Why are we regarded as cattle,
as stupid in your sight?

Why do you persecute me as God does?
Will you never get enough of my flesh?

This is why my unsettling thoughts compel me to answer,
because I am upset!

As for me, is my complaint against a man?
Then why shouldn’t I be impatient?

Why do the wicked continue to live,
growing old and becoming powerful?

Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment?
Why do those who know Him never see His days?

All of you have seen this for yourselves,
why do you keep up this empty talk?

Why do you take Him to court
for not answering anything a person asks?

Be careful that you do not turn to iniquity,
for that is why you have been tested by affliction.

Why do the nations rebel
and the peoples plot in vain?

Lord, why do You stand so far away?
Why do You hide in times of trouble?

Why has the wicked person despised God?
He says to himself, “You will not demand an account.”

For the choir director: according to “The Deer of the Dawn.” A Davidic psalm.My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from my deliverance
and from my words of groaning?

Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.

I will say to God, my rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why must I go about in sorrow
because of the enemy’s oppression?”

Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.

For You are the God of my refuge.
Why have You rejected me?
Why must I go about in sorrow
because of the enemy’s oppression?

Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.

Wake up, Lord! Why are You sleeping?
Get up! Don’t reject us forever!

Why do You hide Yourself
and forget our affliction and oppression?

Why should I fear in times of trouble?
The iniquity of my foes surrounds me.

For the choir director. A Davidic Maskil. When Doeg the Edomite went and reported to Saul, telling him, “David went to Ahimelech’s house.”Why brag about evil, you hero!
God’s faithful love is constant.

This is why God will bring you down forever.
He will take you, ripping you out of your tent;
He will uproot you from the land of the living.Selah

Why gaze with envy, you mountain peaks,
at the mountain God desired for His dwelling?
The Lord will live there forever!

A Maskil of Asaph.Why have You rejected us forever, God?
Why does Your anger burn
against the sheep of Your pasture?

Why do You hold back Your hand?
Stretch out Your right hand and destroy them!

Why should the nations ask,
“Where is their God?”
Before our eyes,
let vengeance for the shed blood of Your servants
be known among the nations.

Why have You broken down its walls
so that all who pass by pick its fruit?

Lord, why do You reject me?
Why do You hide Your face from me?

Why was it, sea, that you fled?
Jordan, that you turned back?

Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”

Why, my son, would you be infatuated
with a forbidden woman
or embrace the breast of a stranger?

Why does a fool have money in his hand
with no intention of buying wisdom?

So I said to myself, “What happens to the fool will also happen to me. Why then have I been overly wise?” And I said to myself that this is also futile.

Do not let your mouth bring guilt on you, and do not say in the presence of the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands?

Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?”
since it is not wise of you to ask this.

Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time?

Tell me, you, the one I love:
Where do you pasture your sheep?
Where do you let them rest at noon?
Why should I be like one who veils herself
beside the flocks of your companions?

Y Come back, come back, Shulammite!
Come back, come back, that we may look at you!

M Why are you looking at the Shulammite,
as you look at the dance of the two camps?

>

Why do you want more beatings?
Why do you keep on rebelling?
The whole head is hurt,
and the whole heart is sick.

Why do you crush My people
and grind the faces of the poor?”
This is the declaration
of the Lord God of Hosts.

What more could I have done for My vineyard
than I did?
Why, when I expected a yield of good grapes,
did it yield worthless grapes?

An oracle against the Valley of Vision:

What’s the matter with you?
Why have all of you gone up to the rooftops?

Jacob, why do you say,
and Israel, why do you assert:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my claim is ignored by my God”?

Why was no one there when I came?
Why was there no one to answer when I called?
Is My hand too short to redeem?
Or do I have no power to deliver?
Look, I dry up the sea by My rebuke;
I turn the rivers into a wilderness;
their fish rot because of lack of water
and die of thirst.

Why do you spend money on what is not food,
and your wages on what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
and you will enjoy the choicest of foods.

“Why have we fasted, but You have not seen?
We have denied ourselves, but You haven’t noticed!”
“Look, you do as you please on the day of your fast,
and oppress all your workers.

Why are Your clothes red,
and Your garments like one who treads a winepress?

Why, Yahweh, do You make us stray from Your ways?
You harden our hearts so we do not fear You.
Return, because of Your servants,
the tribes of Your heritage.

Is Israel a slave?
Was he born into slavery?
Why else has he become a prey?

Why do you bring a case against Me?
All of you have rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Evil generation,
pay attention to the word of the Lord!
Have I been a wilderness to Israel
or a land of dense darkness?
Why do My people claim,
“We will go where we want;
we will no longer come to You”?

This is why the showers haven’t come—
why there has been no spring rain.
You have the brazen look of a prostitute
and refuse to be ashamed.

Why should I forgive you?
Your children have abandoned Me
and sworn by those who are not gods.
I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery;
they gashed themselves at the prostitute’s house.

Why have these people turned away?
Why is Jerusalem always turning away?
They take hold of deceit;
they refuse to return.

Why are we just sitting here?
Gather together; let us enter the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has destroyed us.
He has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.

Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a far away land,
“Is the Lord no longer in Zion,
her King not within her?”
Why have they provoked me to anger
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
So why has the healing of my dear people
not come about?

>

Who is the man wise enough to understand this? Who has the Lord spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?

You will be righteous, Lord,
even if I bring a case against You.
Yet, I wish to contend with You:
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all the treacherous live at ease?

And when you ask yourself,
“Why have these things happened to me?”
It is because of your great guilt
that your skirts have been stripped off,
your body exposed.

Hope of Israel,
its Savior in time of distress,
why are You like a foreigner in the land,
like a traveler stopping only for the night?

Why are You like a helpless man,
like a warrior unable to save?
Yet You are among us, Yahweh,
and we are called by Your name.
Don’t leave us!

Have You completely rejected Judah?
Do You detest Zion?
Why do You strike us
with no hope of healing for us?
We hoped for peace,
but there was nothing good;
for a time of healing,
but there was only terror.

Why has my pain become unending,
my wound incurable,
refusing to be healed?
You truly have become like a mirage to me—
water that is not reliable.

“When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

Why did I come out of the womb
to see only struggle and sorrow,
to end my life in shame?

“Many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why did the Lord do such a thing to this great city?’

Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered pot,
a jar no one wants?
Why are he and his descendants hurled out
and cast into a land they have not known?

Why should you and your people die by the sword, famine, or plague as the Lord has threatened against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?

Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylon and live! Why should this city become a ruin?

So now, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who has been acting like a prophet among you?

Ask and see
whether a male can give birth.
Why then do I see every man
with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor
and every face turned pale?

Why do you cry out about your injury?
Your pain has no cure!
I have done these things to you
because of your enormous guilt
and your innumerable sins.

Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying: “Why are you prophesying, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, I am about to hand this city over to Babylon’s king, and he will capture it.

You are to proclaim concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: This is what the Lord says: You have burned the scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written on it: The king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and cause it to be without man or beast?’

Then Johanan son of Kareah suggested to Gedaliah in private at Mizpah, “Let me go kill Ishmael son of Nethaniah. No one will know it. Why should he kill you and scatter all of Judah that has gathered to you so that the remnant of Judah would perish?”

“So now, this is what the Lord, the God of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves? You are cutting off man and woman, child and infant from Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant.

Why have I seen this?
They are terrified,
they are retreating,
their warriors are crushed,
they flee headlong,
they never look back,
terror is on every side!
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Why have your strong ones been swept away?
Each has not stood,
for the Lord has thrust him down.