² How long is my soul to be in doubt, with sorrow in my heart all the day? how long will he who is against me be given power over me?

⁸ Do not be glad because of my sorrow, O my hater: after my fall I will be lifted up; when I am seated in the dark, the Lord will be a light to me.

⁹ I will undergo the wrath of the Lord, because of my sin against him; till he takes up my cause and does what is right for me: when he makes me come out into the light, I will see his righteousness;

¹⁰ And my hater will see it and be covered with shame; she who said to me, Where is the Lord your God? my eyes will see their desire effected on her, now she will be crushed under foot like the dust of the streets.

¹³ A glad heart makes a shining face, but by the sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

³ The evil man has gone after my soul; my life is crushed down to the earth: he has put me in the dark, like those who have long been dead.

⁴ Because of this my spirit is overcome; and my heart is full of fear.

⁴ Looking to my right side, I saw no man who was my friend: I had no safe place; no one had any care for my soul.

⁵ I have made my cry to you, O Lord; I have said, You are my safe place, and my heritage in the land of the living.

⁶ Give ear to my cry, for I am made very low: take me out of the hands of my haters, for they are stronger than I.

⁷ Take my soul out of prison, so that I may give praise to your name: the upright will give praise because of me; for you have given me a full reward.

³ Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us: for all men are looking down on us.

⁴ For long enough have men of pride made sport of our soul.

³ The nets of death were round me, and the pains of the underworld had me in their grip; I was full of trouble and sorrow.

¹⁸ If I say, My foot is slipping; your mercy, O Lord, is my support.

¹⁹ Among all my troubled thoughts, your comforts are the delight of my soul.

² In the day of my trouble, my heart was turned to the Lord: my hand was stretched out in the night without resting; my soul would not be comforted.

³ I will keep God in memory, with sounds of grief; my thoughts are troubled, and my spirit is overcome. (Selah.)

⁴ You keep my eyes from sleep; I am so troubled that no words come.

⁵ My thoughts go back to the days of the past, to the years which are gone.

⁶ The memory of my song comes back to me in the night; my thoughts are moving in my heart; my spirit is searching with care.

⁷ Will the Lord put me away for ever? will he be kind no longer?

⁸ Is his mercy quite gone for ever? has his word come to nothing?

⁹ Has God put away the memory of his pity? are his mercies shut up by his wrath? (Selah.)

¹⁰ And I said, It is a weight on my spirit; but I will keep in mind the years of the right hand of the Most High.

¹¹ I will keep in mind the works of Jah: I will keep the memory of your wonders in the past.

¹² I will give thought to all your work, while my mind goes over your acts of power.

¹⁸ Keep this in mind, O Lord, that your haters have said cruel things, and that your name has been looked down on by a people of evil behaviour.

¹⁷ This is what I have seen: it is good and fair for a man to take meat and drink and to have joy in all his work under the sun, all the days of his life which God has given him; that is his reward.

¹⁸ Sorrow has come on me! my heart in me is feeble.

¹⁸ Why is my pain unending and my wound without hope of being made well? Sorrow is mine, for you are to me as a stream offering false hope and as waters which are not certain.

²⁷ For in fact he was ill almost to death: but God had mercy on him; and not only on him but on me, so that I might not have grief on grief.

² That I am full of sorrow and pain without end.

⁶ But your hearts are full of sorrow because I have said these things.

⁵³ When I was in the Temple with you every day, your hands were not stretched out against me: but this is your hour, and the authority of the dark power.

³⁸ Then says he to them, My soul is very sad, even to death: keep watch with me here.

⁹ In her skirts were her unclean ways; she gave no thought to her end; and her fall has been a wonder; she has no comforter: see her sorrow, O Lord; for the attacker is lifted up.

⁵ Those who are against her have become the head, everything goes well for her haters; for the Lord has sent sorrow on her because of the great number of her sins: her young children have gone away as prisoners before the attacker.

³ You said, Sorrow is mine! for the Lord has given me sorrow in addition to my pain; I am tired with the sound of my sorrow, and I get no rest.

¹⁰ O God, how long will those who are against us say cruel things? will the hater go on looking down on your name for ever?

¹⁴ Our name is a word of shame among the nations, a sign for the shaking of heads among the peoples.

¹⁵ My downfall is ever before me, and I am covered with the shame of my face;

¹⁶ Because of the voice of him who says sharp and bitter words; because of the hater and him who is the instrument of punishment.

⁸ See, I go forward, but he is not there; and back, but I do not see him;

⁹ I am looking for him on the left hand, but there is no sign of him; and turning to the right, I am not able to see him.

¹⁰ For he has knowledge of the way I take; after I have been tested I will come out like gold.

¹⁵ That, if I was an evil-doer, the curse would come on me; and if I was upright, my head would not be lifted up, being full of shame and overcome with trouble.

²⁷ If I say, I will put my grief out of mind, I will let my face be sad no longer and I will be bright;

²⁸ I go in fear of all my pains; I am certain that I will not be free from sin in your eyes.

¹⁹ If it is a question of strength, he says, Here I am! and if it is a question of a cause at law, he says, Who will give me a fixed day?

²⁰ Though I was in the right, he would say that I was in the wrong; I have done no evil; but he says that I am a sinner.

²¹ I have done no wrong; I give no thought to what becomes of me; I have no desire for life.

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

¹³ When I say, In my bed I will have comfort, there I will get rest from my disease;

¹⁴ Then you send dreams to me, and visions of fear;

¹⁵ So that a hard death seems better to my soul than my pains.

⁶ And Esther said, Our hater and attacker is this evil Haman. Then Haman was full of fear before the king and the queen.

² And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing that you are not ill? this is nothing but sorrow of heart. Then I was full of fear;

¹⁹ And you have made clear to me how good you have been to me today: because, when the Lord gave me up into your hands, you did not put me to death.

² So that he may not come rushing on my soul like a lion, wounding it, while there is no one to be my saviour.

⁴ If I have given back evil to him who did evil to me, or have taken anything from him who was against me without cause;

⁵ Let my hater go after my soul and take it; let my life be crushed to the earth, and my honour into the dust. (Selah.)

² You have made clear your strength even out of the mouths of babies at the breast, because of those who are against you; so that you may put to shame the cruel and violent man.

⁹ I will say to God my Rock, Why have you let me go from your memory? why do I go in sorrow because of the attacks of my haters?

¹⁰ The cruel words of my haters are like a crushing of my bones; when they say to me every day, Where is your God?

⁴ Let my soul be overflowing with grief when these things come back to my mind, how I went in company to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with the song of those who were keeping the feast.

¹⁷ My feet are near to falling, and my sorrow is ever before me.

¹⁸ Let the false lips be shut, which say evil against the upright, looking down on him in their pride.

⁷ I am laughed at by all those who see me: pushing out their lips and shaking their heads they say,

⁸ He put his faith in the Lord; let the Lord be his saviour now: let the Lord be his saviour, because he had delight in him.

⁹ From the evil-doers who are violent to me, and from those who are round me, desiring my death.

¹⁸ To give decision for the child without a father and for the broken-hearted, so that the man of the earth may no longer be feared.

⁶ You have given their towns to destruction; the memory of them has gone; they have become waste for ever.

²⁹ And Saul's fear of David became all the greater, and he went on hating him, day by day.