Psalms 102 · Clearspring

A prayer of one who is afflicted, when he grows faint and pours out his lament before the LORD.

The Prayer of the Afflicted

¹<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.+ ²Let not your face be veiled from me in the day of my trouble; give ear to me, and let my cry be answered quickly.+ ³My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire.+ ⁴My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food.+ ⁵Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone.+ ⁶I am like a bird living by itself in the waste places; like the night-bird in a waste of sand.+ ⁷I keep watch like a bird by itself on the house-top.+ ⁸My haters say evil of me all day; those who are violent against me make use of my name as a curse.+ ⁹I have had dust for bread and my drink has been mixed with weeping:+ ¹⁰Because of your passion and your wrath, for I have been lifted up and then made low by you.+ ¹¹My days are like a shade which is stretched out; I am dry like the grass.+ ¹²But you, O Lord, are eternal; and your name will never come to an end.+ ¹³You will again get up and have mercy on Zion: for the time has come for her to be comforted.+ ¹⁴For your servants take pleasure in her stones, looking with love on her dust.+ ¹⁵So 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:+ ¹⁶When the Lord has put up the walls of Zion, and has been been in his glory;+ ¹⁷When he has given ear to the prayer of the poor, and has not put his request on one side.+ ¹⁸This will be put in writing for the coming generation, and the people of the future will give praise to the Lord.+ ¹⁹For from his holy place the Lord has seen, looking down on the earth from heaven;+ ²⁰Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered;+ ²¹So that they may give out the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;+ ²²When the peoples are come together, and the kingdoms, to give worship to the Lord.+ ²³He has taken my strength from me in the way; he has made short my days.+ ²⁴I will say, O my God, take me not away before my time; your years go on through all generations:+ ²⁵In the past you put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the work of your hands.+ ²⁶They 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:+ ²⁷But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end.+ ²⁸The children of your servants will have a safe resting-place, and their seed will be ever before you.+

The Prayer of the Afflicted

Study Psalm 102