¹ I the man have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

² He has led me and made me go in darkness and not into light.

³ Surely He turned against me; He turns His hand all the day.

⁴ He has wasted my flesh and my skin; He has broken my bones.

⁵ He built against me and has circled me with bitterness and hardship.

⁶ He has made me live in dark places, like the dead of old.

⁷ He has set a fence around me and I cannot go out; He has made my bronze chain heavy.

⁸ Also when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.

⁹ He walled up my ways with cut stone; my paths are crooked.

¹⁰ He was a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in secret places.

¹¹ He has turned my ways aside and torn me in pieces. He made me desolate.

¹² He has bent His bow and set me as a mark for the arrow.

¹³ He has caused the arrows of His quiver to enter into my inward parts.

¹⁴ I was a mockery to all my people, their song all the day.

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness and made me drunk with wormwood.

¹⁶ He also broke my teeth with gravel; He has covered me in the ashes.

¹⁷ And You cast off my soul from peace; I have forgotten blessedness.

¹⁸ And I said, My strength and my hope from the LORD are gone.

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my wandering, as wormwood and bitterness.

²⁰ My soul vividly remembers and bows down on me.

²¹ I recall this to my mind; therefore I hope.

²² It is by the LORD's kindnesses that we are not destroyed, because His mercies never fail.

²³ They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

²⁴ The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him.

²⁵ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.

²⁶ It is good that one should hope for the salvation of the LORD, even in silence.

²⁷ It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

²⁸ He sits alone and keeps silence because He laid it on him.

²⁹ He puts his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there may be hope.

³⁰ He gives his cheek to Him who strikes him; he is filled with reproach.

³¹ For the Lord will not cast off forever;

³² for though He causes grief, yet He will have pity according to the multitude of His kindnesses.

³³ For He does not afflict from His heart, nor does He grieve the sons of men;

³⁴ to crush all the prisoners of the earth under his feet;

³⁵ to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High;

³⁶ to pervert a man in his cause-- this the LORD does not see.

³⁷ Who is this who speaks, and it occurs, when the Lord does not command it?

³⁸ From the mouth of the Most High does not go out the evil and the good.

³⁹ What? Should mankind complain, a living man, because of his sins?

⁴⁰ Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.

⁴¹ Let us lift up our heart and hands to God in Heaven.

⁴² We have sinned and have rebelled; You have not forgiven.

⁴³ You have wrapped Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain; You have not pitied.

⁴⁴ You have wrapped Yourself with a cloud from any prayer passing through.

⁴⁵ You have made us as the sweepings and garbage in the midst of the peoples.

⁴⁶ All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

⁴⁷ Fear and a pit have come to us, shame and ruin.

⁴⁸ Streams of water run down my eye for the ruin of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹ My eye flows out and does not cease, from there being no intermission,

⁵⁰ until the LORD shall look down and behold from Heaven.

⁵¹ My eye pains my soul because of all the daughters of my city.

⁵² My haters have hunted me, like a bird, without cause.

⁵³ They have cut off my life in the pit, and cast a stone at me.

⁵⁴ Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.

⁵⁵ I called on Your name, O LORD, out of the lowest pit.

⁵⁶ You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my relief, at my cry for help.

⁵⁷ You drew near in the day that I called on You; You said, Fear not.

⁵⁸ O LORD, You strove for the causes of my soul; You redeemed my life.

⁵⁹ O Lord, You have seen my wrong; judge my cause.

⁶⁰ You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.

⁶¹ You have heard their reproach, O LORD, all their plots against me;

⁶² the lips of those who rose up against me, and their scheming against me all the day.

⁶³ Behold their sitting down and their rising up; I am their song.

⁶⁴ You will return to them a recompense, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

⁶⁵ You will give them dullness of heart, Your curse on them.

⁶⁶ Pursue and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.