Chapter 102

  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.  

  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.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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:  

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

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