1I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his anger.
2He has led me and brought me into darkness, and not into light.
3Surely he has turned against me. He turns his hand against me all day long.
4He has worn out my flesh and my skin. He has broken my bones.
5He has built up siege works against me. He has surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6He has set me in dark places, like those who died long ago.
7He has walled me in, so that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy.
8Even when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer.
9He has blocked my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.
10He was to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding.
11He has turned me from my ways and torn me in pieces. He has left me desolate.
12He has bent his bow and set me up as a target for the arrow.
13He has made the arrows of his quiver go deep into my body.
14I was a joke to all my people. They sang about me all day long.
15He has filled me with bitterness. He has made me drunk with wormwood.
16He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.
17You have taken peace far away from my soul. I forgot what good things are.
18So I said, "My strength is gone, and so is my hope in the LORD."
19Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
21This I call to mind, and so I have hope.
22It is because of the LORD's mercies that we are not destroyed, because his compassions never fail.
23They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
24"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "so I will hope in him."
25The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
26It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
27It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.
28He sits alone and keeps silent, because God has laid it on him.
29He puts his mouth in the dust, in case there may yet be hope.
30He gives his cheek to the one who strikes him. He is filled full with insults.
31For the Lord will not cast off for ever.
32Though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion, for his mercies are many.
33For he does not afflict from his heart, nor grieve the children of men.
34To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35to deny a man his right in the presence of the Most High,
36to cheat a man in his case - the Lord does not approve of these things.
37Who is the one who speaks, and it happens, when the Lord has not commanded it?
38Do not both evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
39Why should a living man complain, a man, when he is punished for his sins?
40Let us search and test our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
42We have sinned and rebelled. You have not pardoned.
43You have covered yourself with anger and chased us down. You have killed, and you have not pitied.
44You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that our prayer cannot pass through.
45You have made us like scrapings and rubbish among the peoples.
46All our enemies have opened their mouths wide against us.
47Fear and a trap have come upon us, ruin and destruction.
48My eye runs down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49My eye pours down and does not stop; it has no rest,
50until the LORD looks down and sees from heaven.
51What my eye sees brings grief to my heart, because of all the daughters of my city.
52My enemies hunted me hard, like a bird, for no reason.
53They cut off my life in the pit, and threw a stone down on me.
54Waters flowed over my head. Then I said, "I am cut off."
55I called on your name, O LORD, out of the deep pit.
56You have heard my voice. Do not close your ear to my sighing, to my cry.
57You came near on the day that I called on you. You said, "Do not be afraid."
58O Lord, you have taken up the cause of my soul. You have redeemed my life.
59O LORD, you have seen the wrong done to me. Judge my case.
60You have seen all their revenge, and all their plots against me.
61You have heard their insults, O LORD, and all their plots against me,
62the lips of those who rose up against me, and their scheming against me all day long.
63Look at them, sitting down and standing up. I am their song.
64Pay them back, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65Give them hardness of heart; let your curse be on them.
66Chase them down in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.