| 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. |
| 2 | Let not your face be veiled from me in the day of my trouble; give ear to me, and let my cry be answered quickly. |
| 3 | My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire. |
| 4 | My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food. |
| 5 | Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone. |
| 6 | I am like a bird living by itself in the waste places; like the night-bird in a waste of sand. |
| 7 | I keep watch like a bird by itself on the house-top. |
| 8 | My haters say evil of me all day; those who are violent against me make use of my name as a curse. |
| 9 | I have had dust for bread and my drink has been mixed with weeping: |
| 10 | Because of your passion and your wrath, for I have been lifted up and then made low by you. |
| 11 | My days are like a shade which is stretched out; I am dry like the grass. |
| 12 | But you, O Lord, are eternal; and your name will never come to an end. |
| 13 | You will again get up and have mercy on Zion: for the time has come for her to be comforted. |
| 14 | For your servants take pleasure in her stones, looking with love on her dust. |
| 15 | So the nations will give honour to the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will be in fear of his glory: |
| 16 | When the Lord has put up the walls of Zion, and has been been in his glory; |
| 17 | When he has given ear to the prayer of the poor, and has not put his request on one side. |
| 18 | This will be put in writing for the coming generation, and the people of the future will give praise to the Lord. |
| 19 | For from his holy place the Lord has seen, looking down on the earth from heaven; |
| 20 | Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered; |
| 21 | So that they may give out the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; |
| 22 | When the peoples are come together, and the kingdoms, to give worship to the Lord. |
| 23 | He has taken my strength from me in the way; he has made short my days. |
| 24 | I will say, O my God, take me not away before my time; your years go on through all generations: |
| 25 | In the past you put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the work of your hands. |
| 26 | They will come to an end, but you will still go on; they all will become old like a coat, and like a robe they will be changed: |
| 27 | But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end. |
| 28 | The children of your servants will have a safe resting-place, and their seed will be ever before you. |