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3:1  I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his fury,
3:2  He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light.
3:3  Against me alone he turns his hand again and again, all day.
3:4  He has worn away my skin and flesh, he has broken my bones.
3:5  He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
3:6  He has made me live in darkness, like those who are long dead.
3:7  He has walled me in, so I can’t escape; he has weighed me down with chains.
3:8  Even when I cry out, pleading for help, he shuts out my prayer.
3:9  He has barred my way with blocks of stone, he has made my paths crooked.
3:10  He lies in wait for me like a bear, like a lion in hiding.
3:11  He has forced me aside and torn me to pieces, leaving me stunned.
3:12  He has bent his bow and used me as a target for his arrows.
3:13  He has pierced my vital organs with shafts from his quiver.
3:14  I’m a laughingstock to all my people, the butt of their taunts all day long.
3:15  He has filled me with bitterness, sated me with wormwood.
3:16  He has broken my teeth with gravel and pressed me down into ashes.
3:17  I have been so deprived of peace, I have so forgotten what happiness is,
3:18  that I think, “My strength is gone, and so is my hope in Adonai.”
3:19  Remember my utter misery, the wormwood and the gall.
3:20  They are always on my mind; this is why I am so depressed.
3:21  But in my mind I keep returning to something, something that gives me hope —
3:22  that the grace of Adonai is not exhausted, that his compassion has not ended.
3:23  [On the contrary,] they are new every morning! How great your faithfulness!
3:24  “Adonai is all I have,” I say; “therefore I will put my hope in him.
3:25  Adonai is good to those waiting for him, to those who are seeking him out.
3:26  It is good to wait patiently for the saving help of Adonai.
3:27  It is good for a man to bear the yoke from his youth.
3:28  Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him.
3:29  Let him submit absolutely; there may yet be hope.
3:30  Let him offer his cheek to the one who strikes it, and receive his fill of insults.
3:31  For rejection by Adonai does not last forever.
3:32  He may cause grief, but he will take pity, in keeping with the greatness of his grace.
3:33  For he does not arbitrarily torment or punish human beings.
3:34  When anyone tramples underfoot any of the prisoners of the land;
3:35  when anyone deprives a person of justice, in defiance of the Most High;
3:36  when someone is cheated of justice in court — does Adonai not take note of such things?
3:37  Who can say something and have it happen without Adonai’s commanding it?
3:38  Don’t both bad things and good proceed from the mouth of the Most High?
3:39  Why should anyone alive complain, even a strong man, about the punishment for his sins?
3:40  Let us examine and test our ways and return to Adonai.
3:41  Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven and say,
3:42  “We, for our part, have transgressed and rebelled; you, for your part, have not forgiven.
3:43  “You have covered us with anger, pursued and slaughtered us without pity.
3:44  You have covered yourself with a cloud so thick that no prayer can pass through.
3:45  You have reduced us to rubbish and filth among the peoples.
3:46  “All our adversaries open their mouths to jeer at us.
3:47  Panic and pitfall have come upon us, desolation and destruction.
3:48  My eyes stream with rivers of water over the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
3:49  My eyes weep ceaselessly; there is no respite,
3:50  until Adonai looks down and sees from heaven.
3:51  My eyes make me so upset at the fate of the women in my city.
3:52  Those who are my enemies for no reason hunted me down like a bird.
3:53  They forced me alive into a pit and threw stones on me.
3:54  Water rose above my head; I thought, “I am finished!”
3:55  I called on your name, Adonai, from the bottom of the pit.
3:56  You heard my voice; don’t close your ear at my sighs, at my cries.
3:57  You came near when I called to you; you said, “Don’t be afraid.”
3:58  Adonai, you defended my cause; you redeemed my life.
3:59  Adonai, you see how I have been wronged; give judgment in my favor!
3:60  You have seen all their vindictiveness and all their plots against me.
3:61  You have heard their taunts, Adonai, and all their plots against me,
3:62  the whispered murmurings of my foes against me all day long.
3:63  See how, whether they sit or stand, I am the butt of their taunts.
3:64  Repay them, Adonai, as their deeds deserve.
3:65  Give them hardheartedness as your curse on them.
3:66  Pursue them in anger! Destroy them from under your heavens!