Chapter text
World English Bible
Verse-by-verse text with stable anchors, canonical chapter URLs, and copyable verse links.
- 1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
- 2 He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
- 3 Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.
- 4 He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.
- 5 He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
- 6 He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.
- 7 He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.
- 8 Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
- 9 He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.
- 10 He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.
- 11 He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.
- 12 He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
- 13 He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
- 14 I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.
- 15 He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.
- 16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.
- 17 You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity.
- 18 I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from the LORD.”
- 19 Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.
- 20 My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
- 21 This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope.
- 22 It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail.
- 23 They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
- 24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.”
- 25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
- 26 It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
- 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
- 28 Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
- 29 Let him put his mouth in the dust, if it is so that there may be hope.
- 30 Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach.
- 31 For the Lord will not cast off forever.
- 32 For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
- 33 For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
- 34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
- 35 to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
- 36 to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.
- 37 Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?
- 38 Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
- 39 Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
- 40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
- 41 Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
- 42 “We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned.
- 43 “You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.
- 44 You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
- 45 You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples.
- 46 “All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
- 47 Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”
- 48 My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- 49 My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,
- 50 until the LORD looks down, and sees from heaven.
- 51 My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
- 52 They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.
- 53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.
- 54 Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.”
- 55 I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.
- 56 You heard my voice: “Don’t hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry.”
- 57 You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, “Don’t be afraid.”
- 58 Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul. You have redeemed my life.
- 59 LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.
- 60 You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me.
- 61 You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me,
- 62 the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.
- 63 You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.
- 64 You will pay them back, LORD, according to the work of their hands.
- 65 You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.
- 66 You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.