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.

2Let not your face be veiled from me in the day of my trouble; give ear to me, and let my cry be answered quickly.

3My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire.

4My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food.

5Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone.

6I am like a bird living by itself in the waste places; like the night-bird in a waste of sand.

7I keep watch like a bird by itself on the house-top.

8My haters say evil of me all day; those who are violent against me make use of my name as a curse.

9I have had dust for bread and my drink has been mixed with weeping:

10Because of your passion and your wrath, for I have been lifted up and then made low by you.

11My days are like a shade which is stretched out; I am dry like the grass.

12But you, O Lord, are eternal; and your name will never come to an end.

13You will again get up and have mercy on Zion: for the time has come for her to be comforted.

14For your servants take pleasure in her stones, looking with love on her dust.

15So 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:

16When the Lord has put up the walls of Zion, and has been been in his glory;

17When he has given ear to the prayer of the poor, and has not put his request on one side.

18This will be put in writing for the coming generation, and the people of the future will give praise to the Lord.

19For from his holy place the Lord has seen, looking down on the earth from heaven;

20Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered;

21So that they may give out the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

22When the peoples are come together, and the kingdoms, to give worship to the Lord.

23He has taken my strength from me in the way; he has made short my days.

24I will say, O my God, take me not away before my time; your years go on through all generations:

25In the past you put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

26They 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:

27But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end.

28The children of your servants will have a safe resting-place, and their seed will be ever before you.