① 1* 2O Lord, hear my prayer; let my cry for help come to you.
3Do not hide your face from me when I am in trouble. Turn your ear to me; make haste to answer me when I call.
4For my days are passing away like smoke, my bones burning like a furnace.
5Like withered grass, my heart is blighted, and I forget to eat my bread.
6Because of my great grief I am reduced to skin and bones.
7I am like an owl in the wilderness, like a vulture among the ruins.
8I awake moaning like a lonely bird on the housetop.
9All day long I am taunted by my enemies; they use my name as a curse.
10The bread I eat is ashes, my drink is mingled with tears, 11for your wrath, your fury; for you have thrown me aside.
12My days are vanishing like the shadows at night; I wither away like grass.
13But you, O Lord, you sit forever; your name endures through all generations.
14Arise, have mercy on Zion; this is the time to show her your mercy.
15For your servants cherish her stones, and are moved to pity by her dust.
16O Lord, the nations will revere your name, and the kings of the earth your glory,
17when the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in all his splendor.
18For he will answer the prayer of the needy and will not despise their plea.
19Let this be written for future ages, “the Lord will be praised by a people he will form.”
20From his holy height in heaven, the Lord has looked on the earth 21to hear the groaning of the prisoners, and free those condemned to death.
22Then the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem,
23when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship him.
24My walk has exhausted me, he has cut short my days.
25I cry to him, “My God, do not take my life in mid-course, you whose days are from age to age.”
26In the beginning you laid the earth’s foundation, the heavens are the work of your hands.
27Although they perish, you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment, you change them like clothes: they pass away,
28but you remain the same, your years unending.
29Your servants’ children will dwell secure; their posterity will endure without fail.
- This psalm blends two poems: the cry of a forsaken, sick person, and a prayer for the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
Verse 10 says: The bread I eat is ashes, which means: I’m fasting, I’m going without bread and I’m covering myself with ashes.
