- 1I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
- 2He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
- 3Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.
- 4My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.
- 5He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.
- 6He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.
- 7He has walled me about, that I can’t go out; he has made my chain heavy.
- 8Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
- 9He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked.
- 10He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.
- 11He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he has made me desolate.
- 12He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
- 13He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
- 14I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.
- 15He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
- 16He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
- 17You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity.
- 18I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from the Lord.
- 19Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- 20My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
- 21This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope.
- 22It is because of the Lord’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail.
- 23They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
- 24The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
- 25The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
- 26It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
- 27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
- 28Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
- 29Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.
- 30Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach.
- 31For the Lord will not cast off forever.
- 32For though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
- 33For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
- 34To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
- 35To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
- 36To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.
- 37Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?
- 38Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
- 39Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
- 40Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
- 41Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
- 42We have transgressed and have rebelled; you have not pardoned.
- 43You have covered with anger and pursued us; you have killed, you have not pitied.
- 44You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
- 45You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.
- 46All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
- 47Fear and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.
- 48My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- 49My eye pours down, and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,
- 50Until the Lord look down, and see from heaven.
- 51My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
- 52They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
- 53They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.
- 54Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.
- 55I called on your name, the Lord, out of the lowest dungeon.
- 56You heard my voice; don’t hide your ear at my breathing, at my cry.
- 57You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, Don’t be afraid.
- 58Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.
- 59The Lord, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.
- 60You have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against me.
- 61You have heard their reproach, the Lord, and all their devices against me,
- 62The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
- 63You see their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song.
- 64You will render to them a recompense, the Lord, according to the work of their hands.
- 65You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
- 66You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.