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3:1  I am the man who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of God’s wrath.
3:2  He has brought me into deepest darkness, shutting out all light.
3:3  He has turned against me. Day and night his hand is heavy on me.
3:4  He has made me old and has broken my bones.
3:5  He has built forts against me and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
3:6  He buried me in dark places, like those long dead.
3:7  He has walled me in; I cannot escape; he has fastened me with heavy chains.
3:8  And though I cry and shout, he will not hear my prayers!
3:9  He has shut me into a place of high, smooth walls; he has filled my path with detours.
3:10  He lurks like a bear, like a lion, waiting to attack me.
3:11  He has dragged me into the underbrush and torn me with his claws, leaving me bleeding and desolate.
3:12  He has bent his bow and aimed it squarely at me,
3:13  and sent his arrows deep within my heart.
3:14  My own people laugh at me; all day long they sing their ribald songs.
3:15  He has filled me with bitterness and given me a cup of deepest sorrows to drink.
3:16  He has made me eat gravel and broken my teeth; he has rolled me in ashes and dirt.
3:17  O Lord, all peace and all prosperity have long since gone, for you have taken them away. I have forgotten what enjoyment is.
3:18  All hope is gone; my strength has turned to water, for the Lord has left me.
3:19  Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me!
3:20  For I can never forget these awful years; always my soul will live in utter shame.
3:21  Yet there is one ray of hope:
3:22  his compassion never ends. It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction.
3:23  Great is his faithfulness; his loving-kindness begins afresh each day.
3:24  My soul claims the Lord as my inheritance; therefore I will hope in him.
3:25  The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him, to those who seek for him.
3:26  It is good both to hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
3:27  It is good for a young man to be under discipline,
3:28  for it causes him to sit apart in silence beneath the Lord’s demands,
3:29  to lie face downward in the dust; then at last there is hope for him.
3:30  Let him turn the other cheek to those who strike him and accept their awful insults,
3:31  for the Lord will not abandon him forever.
3:32  Although God gives him grief, yet he will show compassion too, according to the greatness of his loving-kindness.
3:33  For he does not enjoy afflicting men and causing sorrow.
3:34  But you have trampled and crushed beneath your feet the lowly of the world, and deprived men of their God-given rights, and refused them justice. No wonder the Lord has had to deal with you!
3:35  But you have trampled and crushed beneath your feet the lowly of the world, and deprived men of their God-given rights, and refused them justice. No wonder the Lord has had to deal with you!
3:36  But you have trampled and crushed beneath your feet the lowly of the world, and deprived men of their God-given rights, and refused them justice. No wonder the Lord has had to deal with you!
3:37  For who can act against you without the Lord’s permission?
3:38  It is the Lord who helps one and harms another.
3:39  Why then should we, mere humans as we are, murmur and complain when punished for our sins?
3:40  Let us examine ourselves instead, and let us repent and turn again to the Lord.
3:41  Let us lift our hearts and hands to him in heaven,
3:42  for we have sinned; we have rebelled against the Lord, and he has not forgotten it.
3:43  You have engulfed us by your anger, Lord, and slain us without mercy.
3:44  You have veiled yourself as with a cloud so that our prayers do not reach through.
3:45  You have made us as refuse and garbage among the nations.
3:46  All our enemies have spoken out against us.
3:47  We are filled with fear, for we are trapped and desolate, destroyed.
3:48  My eyes flow day and night with never-ending streams of tears because of the destruction of my people.
3:49  My eyes flow day and night with never-ending streams of tears because of the destruction of my people.
3:50  Oh, that the Lord might look down from heaven and respond to my cry!
3:51  My heart is breaking over what is happening to the young girls of Jerusalem.
3:52  My enemies, whom I have never harmed, chased me as though I were a bird.
3:53  They threw me in a well and capped it with a rock.
3:54  The water flowed above my head. I thought, This is the end!
3:55  But I called upon your name, O Lord, from deep within the well,
3:56  and you heard me! You listened to my pleading; you heard my weeping!
3:57  Yes, you came at my despairing cry and told me not to fear.
3:58  O Lord, you are my lawyer! Plead my case! For you have redeemed my life.
3:59  You have seen the wrong they did to me; be my Judge, to prove me right.
3:60  You have seen the plots my foes have laid against me.
3:61  You have heard the vile names they have called me,
3:62  and all they say about me and their whispered plans.
3:63  See how they laugh and sing with glee, preparing my doom.
3:64  O Lord, repay them well for all the evil they have done.
3:65  Harden their hearts and curse them, Lord.
3:66  Go after them in fierce pursuit and wipe them off the earth, beneath the heavens of the Lord.