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3:1  I am the man who has seen affliction Because of the rod of His wrath.
3:2  He has driven me and made me walk In darkness and not in light.
3:3  Surely against me He has turned His hand Repeatedly all the day.
3:4  He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away; He has broken my bones.
3:5  He has besieged and encompassed me with gall and hardship.
3:6  Dark places He has made me inhabit, Like those who have long been dead.
3:7  He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy.
3:8  Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.
3:9  He has blocked my ways with cut stone; He has made my paths crooked.
3:10  He is to me like a bear lying in wait, Like a lion in secret places.
3:11  He has turned aside my ways and torn me to pieces; He has made me desolate.
3:12  He bent His bow And set me as a target for the arrow.
3:13  He made the arrows of His quiver To enter into my inward parts.
3:14  I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their music of mockery all the day.
3:15  He has saturated me with bitterness; He has sated me with wormwood.
3:16  He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.
3:17  My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten goodness.
3:18  So I say, “My strength has perished, As well as my hopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.”
3:19  Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and gall.
3:20  Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me.
3:21  This I will return to my heart; Therefore I will wait in hope.
3:22  The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.
3:23  They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
3:24  “Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I wait for Him.”
3:25  Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him, To the soul who seeks Him.
3:26  It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of Yahweh.
3:27  It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth.
3:28  Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him.
3:29  Let him put his mouth in the dust; Perhaps there is hope.
3:30  Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him; Let him be saturated with reproach.
3:31  For the Lord will not reject forever,
3:32  For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness.
3:33  For He does not afflict from His heart Or grieve the sons of men.
3:34  To crush under His feet All the prisoners of the land,
3:35  To deprive a man of justice In the presence of the Most High,
3:36  To defraud a man in his legal case— These things the Lord does not see with approval.
3:37  Who is there who speaks and it happens, Unless the Lord has commanded it?
3:38  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High That both calamities and good go forth?
3:39  Why should any living person or any man Complain because of his sins?
3:40  Let us search out and examine our ways, And let us return to Yahweh.
3:41  We lift up our heart to our hands Toward God in heaven;
3:42  We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned.
3:43  You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have killed and have not spared.
3:44  You have covered Yourself with a cloud So that no prayer can pass through.
3:45  You have made us mere scum and refuse In the midst of the peoples.
3:46  All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
3:47  Panic and pitfall have befallen us, Devastation and destruction;
3:48  My eyes run down with streams of water Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
3:49  My eyes pour down unceasingly, Without stopping,
3:50  Until Yahweh looks down And sees from heaven.
3:51  My eyes deal severely with my soul Because of all the daughters of my city.
3:52  My enemies without cause Hunted me down like a bird;
3:53  They have silenced my life in the pit And have placed a stone on me.
3:54  Waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!”
3:55  I called on Your name, O Yahweh, Out of the lowest pit.
3:56  You have heard my voice, “Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief, From my cry for help.”
3:57  You drew near when I called on You; You said, “Do not fear!”
3:58  O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause; You have redeemed my life.
3:59  O Yahweh, You have seen my oppression; Judge my case.
3:60  You have seen all their vengeance, All their purposes against me.
3:61  You have heard their reproach, O Yahweh, All their purposes against me.
3:62  The lips of those who rise against me and their whispering Are against me all day long.
3:63  Look on their sitting and their rising; I am their mocking song.
3:64  You will recompense them, O Yahweh, 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 the heavens of Yahweh!