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3:1  I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;
3:2  he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
3:3  surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
3:4  He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;
3:5  he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
3:6  he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
3:7  He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy;
3:8  though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
3:9  he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
3:10  He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;
3:11  he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate;
3:12  he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
3:13  He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver;
3:14  I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
3:15  He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
3:16  He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
3:17  my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
3:18  so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD.”
3:19  Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
3:20  My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
3:21  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
3:22  The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
3:23  they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
3:24  “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
3:25  The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
3:26  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
3:27  It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
3:28  Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;
3:29  let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope;
3:30  let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.
3:31  For the Lord will not cast off forever,
3:32  but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
3:33  for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.
3:34  To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,
3:35  to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High,
3:36  to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.
3:37  Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
3:38  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
3:39  Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
3:40  Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!
3:41  Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:
3:42  “We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.
3:43  “You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity;
3:44  you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.
3:45  You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.
3:46  “All our enemies open their mouths against us;
3:47  panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction;
3:48  my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
3:49  “My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite,
3:50  until the LORD from heaven looks down and sees;
3:51  my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
3:52  “I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause;
3:53  they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me;
3:54  water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’
3:55  “I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit;
3:56  you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’
3:57  You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’
3:58  “You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
3:59  You have seen the wrong done to me, O LORD; judge my cause.
3:60  You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
3:61  “You have heard their taunts, O LORD, all their plots against me.
3:62  The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long.
3:63  Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.
3:64  “You will repay them, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
3:65  You will give them dullness of heart; your curse will be on them.
3:66  You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O LORD.”