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3I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath; ²he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; ³against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all day long. ⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; ⁵he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; ⁶he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago. ⁷He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me; ⁸though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; ⁹he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked. ¹⁰He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; ¹¹he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; ¹²he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow. ¹³He shot into my vitals the arrows of his quiver; ¹⁴I have become the laughingstock of all my people, the object of their taunt-songs all day long. ¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood. ¹⁶He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; ¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; ¹⁸so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.” ¹⁹The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! ²⁰My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.

²¹But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: ²²The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; ²³they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”