Dual Panel1I am the man who has known affliction under the rod of the wrath of the LORD.
2It was I whom he led away and left to walk in darkness, where no light is.
3Against me alone he has turned his hand, and so it is all day long.
4He has wasted away my flesh and my skin and broken my bones;
5he has built up as walls around me bitterness and hardship;
6he has cast me into a place of darkness like those long dead.
7He has hemmed me in so that I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with fetters.
8Even when I cry out and plead for help he rejects my prayer.
9He has barred my road with blocks of stone and entangled my way.
10He lies in wait for me like a bear or a lion lurking in a covert.
11He has forced me aside, thrown me down, and left me desolate.
12He has bent his bow and made me the target for his arrows;
13he has pierced right to my kidneys with shafts drawn from his quiver.
14I have become a laughing-stock to all nations, the butt of their mocking songs all day.
15He has given me my fill of bitter herbs and made me drink deep of wormwood.
16He has broken my teeth on gravel; racked with pain, I am fed on ashes.
17Peace has gone from my life and I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18Then I cry out that my strength has gone and so has my hope in the LORD.
19The memory of my distress and my wanderings is wormwood and gall.
20I remember them indeed and am filled with despondency.
21I shall wait patiently because I take this to heart:
22The LORD's love is surely not exhausted, nor has his compassion failed;
23they are new every morning, so great is his constancy.
24“The LORD”, I say, “is all that I have; therefore I shall wait for him patiently.”
25The LORD is good to those who look to him, to anyone who seeks him;
26it is good to wait in patience for deliverance by the LORD.
27It is good for a man to bear the yoke from youth.
28Let him sit alone in silence if it is heavy on him;
29let him lie face downwards on the ground, and there may yet be hope;
30let him offer his cheek to the smiter and endure full measure of abuse.
31For rejection by the Lord does not last for ever.
32He may punish, yet he will have compassion in the fullness of his unfailing love;
33he does not willingly afflict or punish any mortal.
34To trample underfoot prisoners anywhere on earth,
35to deprive a man of his rights in defiance of the Most High,
36to pervert justice in the courts -- such things the Lord has never approved.
37Who can command and have it done if the Lord has forbidden it?
38Do not both bad and good proceed from the mouth of the Most High?
39Why should any man living complain, any mortal who has sinned?
40Let us examine our ways and test them and turn back to the LORD;
41let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, saying:
42“We have sinned and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.
43“You have covered us in anger, pursued us, and slain without pity;
44you have covered yourself with cloud beyond reach of our prayers;
45you have treated us as scum and refuse among the nations.
46“Our enemies all jeer at us with open mouths.
47Before us lie hunter's scare and pit, devastation and ruin.”
48My eyes run with streams of water because of my people's wound.
49My eyes stream with unceasing tears and refuse all comfort,
50while the LORD looks down and sees from heaven.
51My eyes ache because of the fate of all the women of my city.
52Those who for no reason were my enemies drove me cruelly like a bird;
53to silence me they thrust me alive into the pit and closed the opening with a boulder;
54waters rose above my head, and I said, “My end has come.”
55But I called, LORD, on your name from the depths of the pit;
56you heard my plea: “Do not turn a deaf ear when I cry out for relief.”
57You came near when I called to you; you said, “Have no fear.”
58Lord, you pleaded my cause; you came to my rescue.
59You saw the injustice done to me, LORD, and gave judgement in my favour;
60you saw all their vindictive behaviour, all their plotting against me.
61You heard their bitter scorn, LORD, all their plotting,
62the whispering and murmuring of my adversaries the livelong day.
63See how, whether they sit or stand, I am the object of their taunts.
64Pay them back for their deeds, LORD, pay them as they deserve.
65Show them how hard your heart can be, how little concern you have for them.
66Pursue them in anger and wipe them out from beneath your heavens, LORD.