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God’s Steadfast Love Endures3 I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath; 2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; 3 against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all day long.
4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; 5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; 6 he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago.
7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me; 8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; 9 he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked.
10 He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; 11 he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; 12 he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow.
13 He shot into my vitals the arrows of his quiver; 14 I have become the laughingstock of all my people, the object of their taunt-songs all day long. 15 He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; 17 my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; 18 so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the L ord.”
19 The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! 20 My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the L ord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The L ord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The L ord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the L ord. 27 It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth, 28 to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it, 29 to put one’s mouth to the dust (there may yet be hope), 30 to give one’s cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults.
31 For the Lord will not reject forever. 32 Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; 33 for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
34 When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot, 35 when human rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High, 36 when one’s case is subverted —does the Lord not see it?
37 Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? 39 Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins?
40 Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the L ord. 41 Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands to God in heaven. 42 We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.
43 You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; 44 you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. 45 You have made us filth and rubbish among the peoples.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us; 47 panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction. 48 My eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of my people.
49 My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, 50 until the L ord from heaven looks down and sees. 51 My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women in my city.
52 Those who were my enemies without cause have hunted me like a bird; 53 they flung me alive into a pit and hurled stones on me; 54 water closed over my head; I said, “I am lost.”
55 I called on your name, O L ord, from the depths of the pit; 56 you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help, but give me relief!” 57 You came near when I called on you; you said, “Do not fear!”
58 You have taken up my cause, O Lord, you have redeemed my life. 59 You have seen the wrong done to me, O L ord; judge my cause. 60 You have seen all their malice, all their plots against me.
61 You have heard their taunts, O L ord, all their plots against me. 62 The whispers and murmurs of my assailants are against me all day long. 63 Whether they sit or rise—see, I am the object of their taunt-songs.
64 Pay them back for their deeds, O L ord, according to the work of their hands! 65 Give them anguish of heart; your curse be on them! 66 Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the L ord’s heavens.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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The Prophet seems in other words to confirm what he had said, even that the memory of afflictions overwhelmed his soul. For the soul is said to be humbled in or upon man, when he lies down under the burden of despair. It is the soul that raises man up, and as it were revives him; but when the soul is cast as it were on man, it is a most grievous thing; for it is better to lie down a dead body than to have this additional burden, which makes the case still worse. A dead body might indeed lie on the ground without strength and motion, but it may still retain its own place; but when the soul is thus cast down, it is said to press down man, though lifeless, more and more. This then is what the Prophet means. And yet he says that he was so occupied with this remembrance, that he could not thence withdraw his mind. There is no doubt but that he also intended here to confess his own infirmity, and that of all the faithful; and the reason of this we have already explained. Then relying on this doctrine, even when all our thoughts press us down, and not only lead us to despair, but also hurry us on and cast us headlong into it, let us learn to flee even then to God and to lay before him all our complaints, and let us not be ashamed, because we see that this mode of proceeding is suggested to us by the Holy Spirit. It follows, — |