✧I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. ✧2He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light. ✧3Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long. ✧4He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones. ✧5He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. ✧6He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead. ✧7He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy. ✧8Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer. ✧9He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked. ✧10He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding. ✧11He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate. ✧12He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. ✧13He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys. ✧14I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long. ✧15He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood. ✧16He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes. ✧17You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity. ✧18I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from the LORD.” ✧19Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness. ✧20My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me. ✧21This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope. ✧22It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail. ✧23They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. ✧24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.” ✧25The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. ✧26It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. ✧27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. ✧28Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him. ✧29Let him put his mouth in the dust, if it is so that there may be hope. ✧30Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach. ✧31For the Lord will not cast off forever. ✧32For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. ✧33For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. ✧34To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, ✧35to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High, ✧36to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve. ✧37Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it? ✧38Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High? ✧39Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? ✧40Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. ✧41Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God 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. ✧44You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through. ✧45You 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. ✧47Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.” ✧48My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. ✧49My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission, ✧50until the LORD looks down, and sees from heaven. ✧51My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city. ✧52They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause. ✧53They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me. ✧54Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.” ✧55I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon. ✧56You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.” ✧57You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.” ✧58Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life. ✧59LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause. ✧60You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me. ✧61You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me, ✧62the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long. ✧63You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song. ✧64You will pay them back, LORD, according to the work of their hands. ✧65You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them. ✧66You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.