“Call me no longer Naomi;^[a]
    call me Mara,^[b]
    for the Almighty^[c] has dealt bitterly with me.^(A)

⁴ He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
    he has broken my bones;^(C)
5 he has besieged and enveloped me
    with bitterness and tribulation;
⁶ he has made me sit in darkness
    like the dead of long ago.^(D)

⁷ He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
    he has put heavy chains on me;^(E)
8 though I call and cry for help,
    he shuts out my prayer;^(F)
9 he has blocked my ways with hewn stones;
    he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰ He is a bear lying in wait for me,
    a lion in hiding;^(G)
11 he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;
    he has made me desolate;
¹² he bent his bow and set me
    as a mark for his arrow.^(H)

¹³ He shot into my vitals
    the arrows of his quiver;
¹⁴ I have become the laughingstock of all my people,
    the object of their taunt songs all day long.^(I)
15 He has filled me with bitterness;
    he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶ He has made my teeth grind on gravel;
    he has made me cower in ashes;
¹⁷ my soul is bereft of peace;
    I have forgotten what happiness is;
¹⁸ so I say, “Gone is my glory
    and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.”

¹⁹ The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
    is wormwood and gall!^(J)
20 My soul continually thinks of it
    and is bowed down within me.^(K)

¹⁷ “How happy is the one whom God reproves;
    therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.^[a](A)