1. |
A Prayer of the man who is in trouble, when he is overcome, and puts his grief before the Lord. |
2. |
Give ear to my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you. |
3. |
Let not your face be veiled from me in the day of my trouble; give ear to me, and let my cry be answered quickly. |
4. |
My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire. |
5. |
My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food. |
6. |
Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone. |
7. |
I am like a bird living by itself in the waste places; like the night-bird in a waste of sand. |
8. |
I keep watch like a bird by itself on the house-top. |
9. |
My haters say evil of me all day; those who are violent against me make use of my name as a curse. |
10. |
I have had dust for bread and my drink has been mixed with weeping: |
11. |
Because of your passion and your wrath, for I have been lifted up and then made low by you. |
12. |
My days are like a shade which is stretched out; I am dry like the grass. |
13. |
But you, O Lord, are eternal; and your name will never come to an end. |
14. |
You will again get up and have mercy on Zion: for the time has come for her to be comforted. |
15. |
For your servants take pleasure in her stones, looking with love on her dust. |
16. |
So the nations will give honour to the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will be in fear of his glory: |
17. |
When the Lord has put up the walls of Zion, and has been been in his glory; |
18. |
When he has given ear to the prayer of the poor, and has not put his request on one side. |
19. |
This will be put in writing for the coming generation, and the people of the future will give praise to the Lord. |
20. |
For from his holy place the Lord has seen, looking down on the earth from heaven; |
21. |
Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered; |
22. |
So that they may give out the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; |
23. |
When the peoples are come together, and the kingdoms, to give worship to the Lord. |
24. |
He has taken my strength from me in the way; he has made short my days. |
25. |
I will say, O my God, take me not away before my time; your years go on through all generations: |
26. |
In the past you put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the work of your hands. |
27. |
They will come to an end, but you will still go on; they all will become old like a coat, and like a robe they will be changed: |
28. |
But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end. |
29. |
The children of your servants will have a safe resting-place, and their seed will be ever before you. |