¹² Let my prayer come to your ears, O Lord, and give attention to my cry, make an answer to my weeping: for my time here is short before you, and in a little time I will be gone, like all my fathers.

¹¹ My loved ones, I make this request with all my heart, that, as those for whom this world is a strange country, you will keep yourselves from the desires of the flesh which make war against the soul;

¹³ All these came to their end in faith, not having had the heritage; but having seen it with delight far away, they gave witness that they were wanderers and not of the earth.

⁹ And Jacob said, The years of my wanderings have been a hundred and thirty; small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life, and less than the years of the wanderings of my fathers.

¹⁹ I am living in a strange land: do not let your teachings be kept secret from me.

¹⁵ For we, as all our fathers were, are like men from a strange country before you, who have got a place for a time in the land; our days on the earth are like a shade, and there is no hope of going on.

²³ No exchange of land may be for ever, for the land is mine, and you are as my guests, living with me for a time.

⁸ You have seen my wanderings; put the drops from my eyes into your bottle; are they not in your record?

⁵ Go back and say to Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, The Lord, the God of David your father, says, Your prayer has come to my ears, and I have seen your weeping; see, I will make you well: on the third day you will go up to the house of the Lord.

¹⁷ And if you give the name of Father to him who, judging every man by his acts, has no respect for a man's position, then go in fear while you are on this earth:

⁷ Who in the days of his flesh, having sent up prayers and requests with strong crying and weeping to him who was able to give him salvation from death, had his prayer answered because of his fear of God.

⁶ So, then, we are ever without fear, and though conscious that while we are in the body we are away from the Lord,

⁵⁴ Your rules have been melodies to me, while I have been living in strange lands.

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.

¹ <A Prayer of the man who is in trouble, when he is overcome, and puts his grief before the Lord.> Give ear to my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you.

²⁰ My friends make sport of me; to God my eyes are weeping,

¹² It may be that the Lord will take note of my wrongs, and give me back good in answer to his cursing of me today.