The Prophet’s Anguish and Hope
1I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
3Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.
4He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
5He has besieged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and awoe.
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 and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
9He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10He has been to me a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in bambush.
11He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12He has bent His bow
And set me up as a target for the arrow.
13He has caused the carrows of His quiver
To pierce my dloins.
14I have become the ridicule of all my people—
Their taunting song all the day.
15He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drink wormwood.
16He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
And ecovered me with ashes.
17You have moved my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten fprosperity.
18And I said, “My strength and my hope
Have perished from the LORD.”
19Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the ggall.
20My soul still remembers
And hsinks within me.
21This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
22Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
25The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
26It is good that one should hope and 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 and keep silent,
Because God has laid it 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 him,
And be full of reproach.
31For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
33For He does not afflict iwillingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.
34To crush under one’s feet
All the prisoners of the earth,
35To turn aside the justice due a man
Before the face of the Most High,
36Or subvert a man in his cause—
The Lord does not approve.
37Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass,
When the Lord has not commanded it?
38Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That woe and well-being proceed?
39Why should a living man jcomplain,
A man for the punishment of his sins?
40Let us search out and examine our ways,
And turn back to the LORD;
41Let us lift 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 slain and not pitied.
44You have covered Yourself with a cloud,
That prayer should not pass through.
45You have made us an offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
46All our enemies
Have opened their mouths against us.
47Fear and a snare have come upon us,
Desolation and destruction.
48My eyes overflow with rivers of water
For the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49My eyes flow and do not cease,
Without interruption,
50Till the LORD from heaven
Looks down and sees.
51My eyes bring suffering to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.
52My enemies without cause
Hunted me down like a bird.
53They ksilenced my life in the pit
And threw lstones at me.
54The waters 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 voice:
“Do not hide Your ear
From my sighing, from my cry for help.”
57You drew near on the day I called on You,
And said, “Do not fear!”
58O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul;
You have redeemed my life.
59O LORD, You have seen mhow I am wronged;
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 whispering against me all the day.
63Look at their sitting down and their rising up;
I am their taunting song.
64Repay them, O LORD,
According to the work of their hands.
65Give them na veiled heart;
Your curse be upon them!
66In Your anger,
Pursue and destroy them
From under the heavens of the LORD.