“Where is the way where light dwells? And as for darkness, where is its place,

For look, the wicked are bending the bow; They take aim with their arrow on the string To shoot [by stealth] in darkness at the upright in heart.

He bowed the heavens also and came down; And thick darkness was under His feet.

He made darkness His hiding place (covering); His pavilion (canopy) around Him, The darkness of the waters, the thick clouds of the skies.

For You cause my lamp to be lighted and to shine; The Lord my God illumines my darkness.

Yet You have [distressingly] crushed us in the place of jackals And covered us with [the deep darkness of] the shadow of death.

The rulers do not know nor do they understand; They walk on in the darkness [of complacent satisfaction]; All the foundations of the earth [the fundamental principles of the administration of justice] are shaken.

Will Your wonders be known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness [where the dead forget and are forgotten]?

Lover and friend You have placed far from me; My familiar friends are in darkness.

Nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, Nor of the destruction (sudden death) that lays waste at noon.

Clouds and thick darkness surround Him [as at Sinai]; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.

You [O Lord] make darkness and it becomes night, In which prowls about every wild beast of the forest.

He sent [thick, oppressive] darkness and made the land dark; And Moses and Aaron did not rebel against His words.

Some dwelt in darkness and in the deep (deathly) darkness, Prisoners [bound] in misery and chains,

He brought them out of darkness and the deep (deathly) darkness And broke their bonds apart.

Light arises in the darkness for the upright; He is gracious and compassionate and righteous (upright—in right standing with God).

If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, And the night will be the only light around me,”

Even the darkness is not dark to You and conceals nothing from You, But the night shines as bright as the day; Darkness and light are alike to You.

When my spirit was overwhelmed and weak within me [wrapped in darkness], You knew my path. In the way where I walk They have hidden a trap for me.

Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed and weak within me [wrapped in darkness]; My heart grows numb within me.

From those who leave the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness;

The way of the wicked is like [deep] darkness; They do not know over what they stumble.

Whoever curses his father or his mother, His lamp [of life] will be extinguished in time of darkness.

Then I saw that [even secular] wisdom [that brings sorrow] is better than [the pleasures of] folly and self-indulgence as light excels darkness.

The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness; and yet I know that [in the end] one fate happens to them both.