Chapter 88

¹{A Song, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. To the chief Musician. Upon Mahalath Leannoth. An instruction. Of Heman the Ezrahite.} Jehovah, God of my salvation, I have cried by day [and] in the night before thee. ²Let my prayer come before thee; incline thine ear unto my cry. ³For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh to Sheol. ⁴I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no strength: ⁵Prostrate among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave; whom thou rememberest no more, and who are cut off from thy hand. ⁶Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps. ⁷Thy fury lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted [me] with all thy waves. Selah. ⁸Thou hast put my familiar friends far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. ⁹Mine eye consumeth by reason of affliction. Upon thee, Jehovah, have I called every day; I have stretched out my hands unto thee. ¹⁰Wilt thou do wonders to the dead? shall the shades arise and praise thee? Selah. ¹¹Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? thy faithfulness in Destruction? ¹²Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? ¹³But as for me, Jehovah, I cry unto thee, and in the morning my prayer cometh before thee. ¹⁴Why, O Jehovah, castest thou off my soul? [why] hidest thou thy face from me? ¹⁵I am afflicted and expiring from my youth up; I suffer thy terrors, [and] I am distracted. ¹⁶Thy fierce anger hath gone over me; thy terrors have brought me to nought: ¹⁷They have surrounded me all the day like water; they have compassed me about together. ¹⁸Lover and associate hast thou put far from me: my familiar friends are darkness.