I am suffering
—Woe is me! I don’t think I’ll ever win at that game.

In the Book of Jeremiah, the longest book in the Bible, the prophet Jeremiah tells of his sorrow for the sins of the people of Judah and for the coming punishment. He said that the army of Babylon was going to drive the people from their land and that the Babylonians would destroy Jerusalem.

And I cried out, “We are doomed! (Woe is me)

Our wound is severe!

We once thought, ‘This is only an illness.

And we will be able to bear it!’ But our tents have been destroyed.

The ropes that held them in place have been ripped apart.

Our children are gone and are not coming back.

There is no survivor to put our tents back up,

no one left to hang their tent curtains in place.

Woe is an expression meaning sadness or trouble. Today, woe is me is most often used in an overly dramatic way rather than to express true sorrow.