The Prophet’s Anguish
3I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of His wrath.
2He has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light.
3Surely against me has He turned His hand
continually, the whole day long.
4My flesh and my skin He has made waste away;
He has broken my bones;
5He has besieged and enveloped me
with gall and travail.
6He has set me in dark places,
like the dead of long ago.
7He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8Even when I cry for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
9He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10He is to me a bear lying in wait,
a lion in hiding.
11He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12He has bent His bow
and set me as a target for the arrow.
13He has caused the arrows of His quiver
to pierce my inward parts.
14I have become the derision of all my people,
their mocking song all the day.
15He has filled me with bitterness,
He has sated me with wormwood.
16He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and covered me with ashes.
17My soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten prosperity.
18So I say, “My strength and my hope
from the Lord have perished.”
19Remember my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the gall.
20Surely my soul remembers
and is humbled within me.
21But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed;
His compassions do not 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 wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27It is good for a man to bear the yoke
in his youth.
28Let him sit alone in silence
when it is laid on him;
29let him put his mouth in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
30Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
and let him be filled with insults.
31For the Lord
will not cast off forever.
32But though He causes grief, yet He will have compassion
according to the abundance of His mercies.
33For He does not afflict from His heart,
nor grieve the sons of men.
34To crush underfoot
all the prisoners of the earth,
35to turn aside the justice due a man
in the presence of the Most High,
36to subvert a man in his cause,
the Lord does not approve.
37Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad proceed?
39Why should a living man complain,
a man for the punishment of his sins?
40Let us search and try our ways,
and return to the Lord!
41Let us lift up our hearts and hands
to God in heaven:
42We have transgressed and rebelled;
You have not pardoned.
43You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us;
You have killed and not pitied.
44You have covered Yourself with a cloud,
so that no prayer should pass through.
45You have made us filthy refuse
in the midst of the peoples.
46All our enemies have opened their mouths
against us.
47Panic and snare have come upon us,
desolation and destruction.
48My eyes flow with rivers of tears
for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49My eyes flow and do not cease,
without respite,
50until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees.
51My eyes bring suffering to my soul
at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
52My enemies chased me like a bird,
without cause.
53They cut off my life in the pit
and cast stones on me.
54Waters flowed over my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”
55I called on Your name, O Lord,
from the lowest pit.
56You have heard my plea:
“Do not close Your ear to my cry for help!”
57You drew near on the day I called on You,
and You said, “Do not fear!”
58O Lord, You have pleaded the case for 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 vengeance,
all their schemes against me.
61You have heard their reproach, O Lord,
all their schemes against me,
62the lips of my enemies and
their devices against me all the day.
63Look at their sitting down and their rising up;
I am their mocking song.
64Render to them a recompense, O Lord,
according to the work of their hands.
65Give them hardness of heart;
may Your curse be upon them!
66In Your anger pursue and destroy them
from under Your heavens, O Lord!
