Add parallel Print Page Options

19 Remember my affliction and my misery,
    the wormwood and the bitterness.
20 My soul still remembers them,
    and is bowed down within me.
21 This I recall to my mind;
    therefore I have hope.

22 It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed,
    because his compassion doesn’t fail.
23 They are new every morning.
    Great is your faithfulness.
24 “Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul.
    “Therefore I will hope in him.”

25 Yahweh is good to those who wait for him,
    to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that a man should hope
    and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
27     It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

28 Let him sit alone and keep silence,
    because he has laid it on him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust,
    if it is so that there may be hope.
30 Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him.
    Let him be filled full of reproach.

31 For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32     For though he causes grief,
    yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
33 For he does not afflict willingly,
    nor grieve the children of men.

34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
35     to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
36     to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.

37 Who is he who says, and it comes to pass,
    when the Lord doesn’t command it?
38 Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
39     Why does a living man complain,
    a man for the punishment of his sins?

40 Let us search and try our ways,
    and turn again to Yahweh.
41 Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God[a] in the heavens.
42     “We have transgressed and have rebelled.
    You have not pardoned.

43 “You have covered us with anger and pursued us.
    You have killed.
    You have not pitied.
44 You have covered yourself with a cloud,
    so that no prayer can pass through.
45 You have made us an off-scouring and refuse
    in the middle of the peoples.

46 “All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
47     Terror and the pit have come on us,
    devastation and destruction.”

48 My eye runs down with streams of water,
    for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eye pours down
    and doesn’t cease,
    without any intermission,
50 until Yahweh looks down,
    and sees from heaven.
51 My eye affects my soul,
    because of all the daughters of my city.

52 They have chased me relentlessly like a bird,
    those who are my enemies without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon,
    and have cast a stone on me.
54 Waters flowed over my head.
    I said, “I am cut off.”

55 I called on your name, Yahweh,
    out of the lowest dungeon.
56 You heard my voice:
    “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing,
    and my cry.”

57 You came near in the day that I called on you.
    You said, “Don’t be afraid.”

58 Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul.
    You have redeemed my life.
59 Yahweh, you have seen my wrong.
    Judge my cause.
60 You have seen all their vengeance
    and all their plans against me.

61 You have heard their reproach, Yahweh,
    and all their plans against me,
62 the lips of those that rose up against me,
    and their plots against me all day long.
63 You see their sitting down and their rising up.
    I am their song.

64 You will pay them back, Yahweh,
    according to the work of their hands.
65 You will give them hardness of heart,
    your curse to them.
66 You will pursue them in anger,
    and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 3:41 The Hebrew word rendered “God” is “אֱלֹהִ֑ים” (Elohim).