1I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath.
2He has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not light.
3Surely against me he turns his hand again and again, all the day long.
4He has worn away my flesh and my skin; he has broken my bones.
5He has built up against me and encircled me with bitterness and hardship.
6In dark places he has made me dwell, like those long dead.
7He has walled me in so I cannot get out; he has made my bronze chains heavy.
8Even when I cry out and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
9He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has twisted my paths.
10He is to me a bear lying in wait, a lion in hiding.
11He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; he has left me desolate.
12He has bent his bow and set me up as the target for the arrow.
13He has brought into my kidneys the sons of his quiver.
14I have become a laughingstock to all my people, their mocking song all the day long.
15He has filled me with bitter things; he has sated me with wormwood.
16He has made my teeth grind on gravel; he has pressed me down into the ashes.
17My life is rejected from peace; I have forgotten what is good.
18So I said, “My endurance has perished, and my hope from Yahweh.”
19Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the bitterness.
20Surely my soul remembers and sinks down within me.
21This I call to mind; therefore I have hope.
22The acts of Yahweh’s loyal love — surely they do not end, for his compassions do not fail.
23They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24“Yahweh is my portion,” my soul says, “therefore I will hope in him.”
25Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
26It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of Yahweh.
27It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
28Let him sit alone and be silent, for he has laid it upon him.
29Let him put his mouth in the dust — perhaps there is hope.
30Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him; let him be filled with reproach.
31For the Lord will not reject forever.
32For though he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his loyal love.
33For he does not afflict from his heart, nor grieve the sons of man.
34To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,
35to turn aside the justice of a man before the face of the Most High,
36to subvert a person in his lawsuit — the Lord does not approve.
37Who is this who spoke, and it came to be, unless the Lord commanded it?
38From the mouth of the Most High does not both evil and good come forth?
39Why should a living person complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
40Let us search out our ways and examine them, and let us return to Yahweh.
41Let us lift up our hearts along with our hands to God in the heavens.
42We ourselves have transgressed and rebelled; you have not forgiven.
43You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you have slain, you have not spared.
44You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
45Refuse and rejected filth you have made us in the midst of the peoples.
46All our enemies have opened wide their mouth against us.
47Panic and pitfall have been ours, devastation and destruction.
48Streams of water go down from my eye over the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49My eye flows and does not cease, without respite,
50until Yahweh looks down and sees from heaven.
51My eye brings grief to my soul over all the daughters of my city.
52Those who are my enemies without cause hunted me like a bird.
53They silenced my life in the pit and cast a stone upon me.
54Waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off.”
55I called out your name, Yahweh, from the depths of the pit.
56You heard my voice: “Do not hide your ear from my relief, from my cry for help.”
57You drew near on the day I called out to you; you said, “Do not fear.”
58You have pleaded, O Lord, the cases of my soul; you have redeemed my life.
59You have seen, Yahweh, the wrong done to me; judge my cause.
60You have seen all their vengeance, all their schemes against me.
61You have heard their taunts, O Yahweh, all their schemes against me,
62the lips of those who rise against me, and their muttering against me all day long.
63Look at their sitting down and their rising up; I am the object of their mocking song.
64You will repay them their due, O Yahweh, according to the work of their hands.
65You will give them dullness of heart; your curse be upon them!
66You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.
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