1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his fury.
2 Me he has driven and made to walk in darkness and not in light.
3 Surely against me he turns his hand again and again, all the day.
4 He has worn out my flesh and my skin; he has shattered my bones.
5 He has built against me and encircled me with poison and hardship.
6 In dark places he has made me sit, like the dead of long ago.
7 He has walled me in, and I cannot go out; he has made my bronze chain heavy.
8 Even when I cry and shout for help, he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has walled up my ways with dressed stone; he has twisted my paths.
10 A bear lying in wait he is to me, a lion in hiding.
11 He has turned my ways aside and pulled me to pieces; he has made me desolate.
12 He bent his bow and set me up like a mark for the arrow.
13 He has sent into my inmost parts the arrows of his quiver.
14 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, the theme of their song all day long.
15 He has sated me with bitterness; he has made me drink my fill of wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel; he has made me cower in ashes.
17 My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten what is good.
18 And I said, "Gone is my endurance, and my hope from the LORD."
19 Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and the poison.
20 My soul remembers it well and sinks down within me.
21 This I bring back to my mind; therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the LORD is why we are not consumed, for his compassions do not fail.
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24 "The LORD is my portion," my soul says; "therefore I will wait for him."
25 Good is the LORD to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
26 It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bear a yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and be silent, for he has laid it upon him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust; there may yet be hope.
30 Let him offer his cheek to the one who strikes him; let him be filled full with insult.
31 For the Lord does not reject forever.
32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion according to the greatness of his steadfast love.
33 For it is not from his heart that he afflicts or grieves the sons of men.
34 To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the land,
35 to deny a man justice before the face of the Most High,
36 to wrong a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not look on with approval.
37 Who has spoken and it came to be, if the Lord did not command it?
38 Do not evil things and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
39 Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment for his sins?
40 Let us test and search out our ways, and turn back to the LORD.
41 Let us lift up our hearts along with our palms to God in the heavens:
42 "We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.
43 "You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you have killed without pity.
44 "You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that prayer cannot get through.
45 "Offscouring and refuse you have made us in the midst of the peoples.
46 "All our enemies have opened their mouths wide against us.
47 "Terror and pit have come upon us, ruin and shattering."
48 My eye streams with rivers of water over the shattering of the daughter of my people.
49 My eye flows and will not stop, without a pause,
50 until the LORD looks down and sees from the heavens.
51 My eye deals harshly with my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Those who are my enemies for no reason have hunted me like a bird.
53 They silenced my life in the pit and threw stones at me.
54 Water flowed over my head; I said, "I am cut off."
55 I called on your name, O LORD, from the lowest pit.
56 You heard my voice: "Do not close your ear to my plea for relief, to my cry!"
57 You came near on the day I called you; you said, "Do not be afraid!"
58 You have taken up the cases of my soul, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
59 You have seen, O LORD, the wrong done to me; judge my cause.
60 You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
61 You have heard their taunts, O LORD, all their plots against me,
62 the lips and the murmurings of those who rise against me, against me all day long.
63 Look at their sitting and their rising; I am their song.
64 You will pay them back, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65 You will give them a covering over the heart; your curse be on them!
66 You will pursue them in anger and wipe them out from under the heavens of the LORD.