²⁰ If I have done wrong, what have I done to you, O keeper of men? why have you made me a mark for your blows, so that I am a weariness to myself?

¹² With his bow bent, he has made me the mark for his arrows.

⁶ Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judging is like the great deep; O Lord, you give life to man and beast.

⁴ O Lord God of armies, how long will your wrath be burning against the rest of your people?

¹² Their backs will be turned when you make ready the cords of your bow against their faces.

⁶ If you have done wrong, is he any the worse for it? and if your sins are great in number, what is it to him?

²⁷ He makes a song, saying, I did wrong, turning from the straight way, but he did not give me the reward of my sin.

⁹ I am clean, without sin; I am washed, and there is no evil in me:

³³ If I kept my evil doings covered, and my sin in the secret of my breast,

⁵ Is not your evil-doing great? and there is no end to your sins.

¹² I was in comfort, but I have been broken up by his hands; he has taken me by the neck, shaking me to bits; he has put me up as a mark for his arrows.

¹³ His bowmen come round about me; their arrows go through my body without mercy; my life is drained out on the earth.

¹⁴ I am broken with wound after wound; he comes rushing on me like a man of war.

¹⁶ For now my steps are numbered by you, and my sin is not overlooked.

²⁶ For you put bitter things on record against me, and send punishment on me for the sins of my early years;

²⁹ You will not let me be clear of sin! why then do I take trouble for nothing?

³⁰ If I am washed with snow water, and make my hands clean with soap;

³¹ Then you will have me pushed into the dust, so that I will seem disgusting to my very clothing.

¹¹ So I will not keep my mouth shut; I will let the words come from it in the pain of my spirit, my soul will make a bitter outcry.

¹² Am I a sea, or a sea-beast, that you put a watch over me?

⁴ For the arrows of the Ruler of all are present with me, and their poison goes deep into my spirit: his army of fears is put in order against me.

²⁴ In place of my food I have grief, and cries of sorrow come from me like water.

⁶ You are the Lord, even you only; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their armies, the earth and all things in it, the seas and everything in them; and you keep them from destruction: and the armies of heaven are your worshippers.