God’s Faithfulness

Great Is Your Faithfulness

¹kI am the man who has seen affliction

under the lrod of his wrath;

²he has driven and brought me

minto darkness without any light;

³surely against me he turns his hand

again and again the whole day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;

nhe has broken my bones;

⁵ohe has besieged and enveloped me

with pbitterness and tribulation;

⁶qhe has made me dwell in darkness

like the dead of long ago.

⁷rHe has walled me about so that sI cannot escape;

he has made my chains heavy;

⁸though tI call and cry for help,

he shuts out my prayer;

⁹rhe has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;

he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰uHe is a bear lying in wait for me,

a lion in hiding;

¹¹vhe turned aside my steps and utore me to pieces;

whe has made me desolate;

¹²xhe bent his bow yand set me

as a target for his arrow.

¹³He drove into my kidneys

zthe arrows of his quiver;

¹⁴aI have become the laughingstock of all peoples,

bthe object of their taunts all day long.

¹⁵cHe has filled me with bitterness;

he has sated me with dwormwood.

¹⁶eHe has made my teeth grind on gravel,

and fmade me cower in ashes;

¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness1 is;

¹⁸gso I say, “My endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the Lord.”

¹⁹hRemember my affliction and my wanderings,

dthe wormwood and ithe gall!

²⁰My soul continually remembers it

jand is bowed down within me.

²¹But this I call to mind,

and ktherefore I have hope:

²²lThe steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;2

lhis mercies never come to an end;

²³they are new mevery morning;

ngreat is your faithfulness.

²⁴o“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

k“therefore I will hope in him.”

²⁵The Lord is good to those who pwait for him,

to the soul who seeks him.

²⁶qIt is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

²⁷rIt is good for a man that he bear

the yoke sin his youth.

²⁸Let him tsit alone in silence

when it is laid on him;

²⁹ulet him put his mouth in the dust—

there may yet be hope;

³⁰vlet him give his cheek to the one who strikes,

and let him be filled with insults.

³¹wFor the Lord will not

cast off forever,

³²but, though he xcause grief, yhe will have compassion

zaccording to the abundance of his steadfast love;

³³afor he does not afflict from his heart

or bgrieve the children of men.

³⁴To crush underfoot

all cthe prisoners of the earth,

³⁵dto deny a man justice

in the presence of the Most High,

³⁶to subvert a man in his lawsuit,

dthe Lord does not approve.

³⁷eWho has spoken and it came to pass,

unless the Lord has commanded it?

³⁸fIs it not from the mouth of the Most High

that good and bad come?

³⁹gWhy should a living man complain,

a man, about the punishment of his sins?

⁴⁰Let us test and examine our ways,

hand return to the Lord!

⁴¹iLet us lift up our hearts and hands

to God in heaven:

⁴²j“We have transgressed and krebelled,

and you have not forgiven.

⁴³“You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,

lkilling without pity;

⁴⁴myou have wrapped yourself with a cloud

so that no prayer can pass through.

⁴⁵nYou have made us scum and garbage

among the peoples.

⁴⁶o“All our enemies

open their mouths against us;

⁴⁷ppanic and pitfall have come upon us,

devastation and qdestruction;

⁴⁸rmy eyes flow with rivers of tears

because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹r“My eyes will flow without ceasing,

without respite,

⁵⁰suntil the Lord from heaven

looks down and sees;

⁵¹my eyes cause me grief

at the fate of all the daughters of my city.

⁵²t“I have been hunted ulike a bird

by those who were my enemies vwithout cause;

⁵³wthey flung me alive into the pit

xand cast stones on me;

⁵⁴ywater closed over my head;

I said, z‘I am lost.’

⁵⁵a“I called on your name, O Lord,

from the depths of the pit;

⁵⁶byou heard my plea, ‘Do not close

your ear to my cry for help!’

⁵⁷cYou came near when I called on you;

you said, d‘Do not fear!’

⁵⁸“You have etaken up my cause, fO Lord;

you have eredeemed my life.

⁵⁹You have seen the wrong done to me, gO Lord;

judge my cause.

⁶⁰You have seen all their vengeance,

all htheir plots against me.

⁶¹i“You have heard their taunts, O Lord,

all htheir plots against me.

⁶²The lips and thoughts jof my assailants

are against me all the day long.

⁶³kBehold their sitting and their rising;

lI am the object of their taunts.

⁶⁴m“You will repay them,3 O Lord,

naccording to the work of their hands.

⁶⁵You will give them4 dullness of heart;

your curse will be5 on them.

⁶⁶You will pursue them6 in anger and odestroy them

from under pyour heavens, O Lord.”7