88 O Jehovah, the God of my salvation,
I have cried day and night before thee.
² Let my prayer enter into thy presence;
Incline thine ear unto my cry.
³ For my soul is full of troubles,
And my life draweth nigh unto Sheol.
⁴ I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit;
I am as a man that hath no help,
⁵ Cast ^[b]off among the dead,
Like the slain that lie in the grave,
Whom thou rememberest no more,
And they are cut off from thy hand.
⁶ Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,
In dark places, in the deeps.
⁷ Thy wrath lieth hard upon me,
And thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah
⁸ Thou hast put mine acquaintance far from me;
Thou hast made me an abomination unto them:
I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.
⁹ Mine eye wasteth away by reason of affliction:
I have called daily upon thee, O Jehovah;
I have spread forth my hands unto thee.
¹⁰ Wilt thou show wonders to the dead?
Shall ^[c]they that are deceased arise and praise thee? Selah
¹¹ Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave?
Or thy faithfulness in ^[d]Destruction?
¹² Shall thy wonders be known in the dark?
And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
¹³ But unto thee, O Jehovah, have I cried;
And in the morning shall my prayer come before thee.
¹⁴ Jehovah, why castest thou off my soul?
Why hidest thou thy face from me?
¹⁵ I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up:
While I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.
¹⁶ Thy fierce wrath is gone over me;
Thy terrors have cut me off.
¹⁷ They came round about me like water all the day long;
They compassed me about together.
¹⁸ Lover and friend hast thou put far from me,
And mine acquaintance ^[e]into darkness.