Isaiah 28-39

English Standard Version Anglicised

28 Ah, the proud crown of ^(A)the drunkards of Ephraim,
    and the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
    which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine!
² Behold, the Lord has ^(B)one who is mighty and strong;
    like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest,
like ^(C)a storm of mighty, overflowing waters,
    he casts down to the earth with his hand.
^3 (D)The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim
    will be trodden underfoot;
^4 (E)and the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
    which is on the head of the rich valley,
will be like ^(F)a first-ripe fig before the summer:
    when someone sees it, he swallows it
    as soon as it is in his hand.
^5 (G)In that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory,^[a]
    and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people,
⁶ and ^(H)a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgement,
    and ^(I)strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
^7 (J)These also reel with wine
    and ^(K)stagger with strong drink;
the priest and ^(L)the prophet reel with strong drink,
    they are swallowed by^[b] wine,
    they stagger with strong drink,
they reel in vision,
    they stumble in giving judgement.
⁸ For all tables are full of filthy vomit,
    with no space left.
^9 (M)“To whom will he teach knowledge,
    and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from the milk,
    those taken from the breast?
¹⁰ For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little.”
^11 (N)For by people of strange lips
    and with a foreign tongue
the Lord will speak to this people,
¹²     to whom he has said,
^(O)“This is rest;
    give rest to the weary;
and this is repose”;
    yet they would not hear.
¹³ And the word of the Lord will be to them
precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little,
^(P)that they may go, and fall backwards,
    and be broken, and snared, and taken.

¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you ^(Q)scoffers,
    who rule this people in Jerusalem!
¹⁵ Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
    and with Sheol we have an agreement,
when the ^(R)overwhelming whip passes through
    it will not come to us,
for we have made ^(S)lies our refuge,
    and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
¹⁶ therefore thus says the Lord God,
^(T)“Behold, I am the one who has laid^[c] as a foundation ^(U)in Zion,
    a stone, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:
    ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’
¹⁷ And I will make justice ^(V)the line,
    and righteousness ^(W)the plumb line;
and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
    and waters will overwhelm the shelter.”
¹⁸ Then ^(X)your covenant with death will be annulled,
    and your agreement with Sheol will not stand;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through,
    you will be beaten down by it.
¹⁹ As often as it passes through it will take you;
    ^(Y)for morning by morning it will pass through,
    by day and by night;
and it will be ^(Z)sheer terror to understand the message.
²⁰ For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on,
    and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.
²¹ For the Lord will rise up ^(AA)as on Mount Perazim;
    ^(AB)as in the Valley of ^(AC)Gibeon he will be roused;
to do his deed—strange is his deed!
    and to work his work—alien is his work!
²² Now therefore do not ^(AD)scoff,
    lest your bonds be made strong;
for I have heard ^(AE)a decree of destruction
    from the Lord God of hosts against the whole land.
²³ Give ear, and hear my voice;
    give attention, and hear my speech.
²⁴ Does he who ploughs for sowing plough continually?
    Does he continually open and harrow his ground?
^25 (AF)When he has levelled its surface,
    does he not scatter dill, sow cumin,
and put in wheat in rows
    and barley in its proper place,
    and emmer^[d] as the border?
^26 (AG)For he is rightly instructed;
    his God teaches him.
²⁷ Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
    nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin,
but dill is beaten out with a stick,
    and cumin with a rod.
²⁸ Does one crush grain for bread?
    No, he does not thresh it for ever;^[e]
when he drives his cart wheel over it
    with his horses, he does not crush it.
²⁹ This also comes from the Lord of hosts;
    he is ^(AH)wonderful in counsel
    and excellent in wisdom.

29 Ah, Ariel, Ariel,
    the city ^(AI)where David encamped!
Add year to year;
    let the feasts run their round.
² Yet I will distress Ariel,
    and there shall be moaning and lamentation,
    and she shall be to me like an Ariel.^[f]
3 (AJ)And I will encamp against you all round,
    and will besiege you ^(AK)with towers
    and I will raise siege works against you.
^4 (AL)And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,
    and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;
your voice shall come from the ground like ^(AM)the voice of a ghost,
    and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
⁵ But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like ^(AN)small dust,
    and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.
^(AO)And in an instant, suddenly,
^{6     (AP)}you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
    with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
⁷ And ^(AQ)the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
    all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,
    shall be ^(AR)like a dream, a vision of the night.
^8 (AS)As when a hungry man dreams he is eating
    and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,
or as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking
    and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
    that fight against Mount Zion.
⁹ Astonish yourselves^[g] and be astonished;
    blind yourselves and be blind!
Be drunk, but not with wine;
    ^(AT)stagger, but not with strong drink!
^10 (AU)For the Lord has poured out upon you
    a spirit of deep sleep,
and has closed your eyes (the prophets),
    and covered your heads (the seers).

¹³ And the Lord said:
“Because ^(AW)this people ^(AX)draw near with their mouth
    and honour me with their lips,
    while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
¹⁴ therefore, behold, ^(AY)I will again
    do wonderful things with this people,
    with wonder upon wonder;
and ^(AZ)the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
    and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
¹⁵ Ah, ^(BA)you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,
    whose deeds are ^(BB)in the dark,
    and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
^16 (BC)You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
    “He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
    “He has no understanding”?
¹⁷ Is it not yet a very little while
    ^(BD)until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
    and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?
¹⁸ In that day ^(BE)the deaf shall hear
    ^(BF)the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness
    ^(BG)the eyes of the blind shall see.
^19 (BH)The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
    and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
²⁰ For the ruthless shall come to nothing
    and ^(BI)the scoffer cease,
    and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
²¹ who by a word make a man out to be an offender,
    and ^(BJ)lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,
    and with an empty plea ^(BK)turn aside him who is in the right.

“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,
    no more shall his face grow pale.
²³ For when he sees his children,
    ^(BM)the work of my hands, in his midst,
    they will sanctify my name;
^(BN)they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
    and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
²⁴ And those ^(BO)who go astray in spirit will come to understanding,
    and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

30 “Ah, ^(BP)stubborn children,” declares the Lord,
^(BQ)“who carry out a plan, but not mine,
and who make ^(BR)an alliance,^[h] but not of my Spirit,
    that they may add sin to sin;
^2 (BS)who set out to go down to Egypt,
    without asking for my direction,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh
    and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!
^3 (BT)Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame,
    and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.
⁴ For though his officials are at ^(BU)Zoan
    and ^(BV)his envoys reach ^(BW)Hanes,
⁵ everyone comes to shame
    through ^(BX)a people that cannot profit them,
that brings neither help nor profit,
    but shame and disgrace.”

Through a land of trouble and anguish,
    from where come the lioness and the lion,
    the adder and the ^(CB)flying fiery serpent,
they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,
    and their treasures on the humps of camels,
    to a people that cannot profit them.
⁷ Egypt's ^(CC)help is worthless and empty;
    therefore I have called her
    ^(CD)“Rahab who sits still.”

⁸ And now, go, ^(CE)write it before them on a tablet
    and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come
    as a witness for ever.^[i]
9 (CF)For they are a rebellious people,
    lying children,
children unwilling to hear
    the instruction of the Lord;
^10 (CG)who say to ^(CH)the seers, “Do not see”,
    and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us ^(CI)smooth things,
    prophesy illusions,
¹¹ leave the way, turn aside from the path,
    let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
¹² Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,
“Because you despise this word
    and trust in ^(CJ)oppression and perverseness
    and rely on them,
¹³ therefore this iniquity shall be to you
    ^(CK)like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse,
    whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;
¹⁴ and its breaking is ^(CL)like that of a potter's vessel
    that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a shard is found
    with which to take fire from the hearth,
    or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
¹⁵ For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
“In ^(CM)returning^[j] and ^(CN)rest you shall be saved;
    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
But you were unwilling, ¹⁶ and you said,
“No! We will flee upon ^(CO)horses”;
    therefore you shall flee away;
and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”;
    therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
^17 (CP)A thousand shall flee at the threat of one;
    at the threat of five you shall flee,
till you are left
    like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
    like a signal on a hill.

¹⁸ Therefore the Lord ^(CQ)waits to be gracious to you,
    and therefore he ^(CR)exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
    ^(CS)blessed are all those who wait for him.

²⁷ Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar,
    burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;^[k]
his lips are full of fury,
    and his tongue is like a devouring fire;
^28 (DJ)his breath is ^(DK)like an overflowing stream
    that reaches up to the neck;
to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,
    and to place on the jaws of the peoples ^(DL)a bridle that leads astray.

31 Woe to ^(DY)those who go down to Egypt for help
    and rely on horses,
who ^(DZ)trust in chariots because they are many
    and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but ^(EA)do not look to the Holy One of Israel
    or consult the Lord!
² And ^(EB)yet he is wise and brings disaster;
    ^(EC)he does not call back his words,
but ^(ED)will arise against the house of the evildoers
    and against the helpers of ^(EE)those who work iniquity.
³ The Egyptians are man, and not God,
    and their horses ^(EF)are flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out his hand,
    the helper will stumble, and he who is helped will fall,
    and they will all perish together.
⁴ For thus the Lord said to me,
^(EG)“As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey,
    and when a band of shepherds is called out against him
he is not terrified by their shouting
    or daunted at their noise,
^(EH)so the Lord of hosts will come down
    to fight^[m] on Mount Zion and on its hill.
^5 (EI)Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts
    will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it;
    he will spare and rescue it.”

^8 (EM)“And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man;
    and a sword, not of man, shall devour him;
and he shall flee from the sword,
    and his young men shall be ^(EN)put to forced labour.
^9 (EO)His rock shall pass away in terror,
    and his officers desert the standard in panic,”
declares the Lord, whose ^(EP)fire is in Zion,
    and whose ^(EQ)furnace is in Jerusalem.

32 Behold, ^(ER)a king will reign in righteousness,
    and princes will rule in justice.
^2 (ES)Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,
    a shelter from the storm,
^(ET)like streams of water in a dry place,
    like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
^3 (EU)Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed,
    and the ears of those who hear will give attention.
⁴ The heart of the hasty will understand and know,
    ^(EV)and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.
^5 (EW)The fool will no more be called noble,
    nor the scoundrel said to be honourable.
⁶ For ^(EX)the fool speaks folly,
    and his heart is busy with iniquity,
to practise ungodliness,
    to utter error concerning the Lord,
^(EY)to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied,
    and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
⁷ As for the scoundrel—^(EZ)his devices are evil;
    he plans wicked schemes
to ruin the poor with lying words,
    even when the plea of the needy is right.
⁸ But he who is noble plans noble things,
    and on noble things he stands.

^9 (FA)Rise up, you women ^(FB)who are at ease, hear my voice;
    you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
¹⁰ In little more than a year
    you will shudder, you complacent women;
for the grape harvest fails,
    the fruit harvest will not come.
¹¹ Tremble, you women ^(FC)who are at ease,
    shudder, you complacent ones;
^(FD)strip, and make yourselves bare,
    ^(FE)and tie sackcloth round your waist.
^12 (FF)Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,
    for the fruitful vine,
^13 (FG)for the soil of my people
    growing up in thorns and briers,
^(FH)yes, for all the joyous houses
    in the exultant city.
¹⁴ For the palace is forsaken,
    the populous city deserted;
the hill and the watchtower
    will become dens for ever,
^(FI)a joy of wild donkeys,
    a pasture of flocks;
¹⁵ until ^(FJ)the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
    and ^(FK)the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
    and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
¹⁶ Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
    and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
^17 (FL)And the effect of righteousness will be peace,
    and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust^[o] for ever.
¹⁸ My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
    in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.
^19 (FM)And it will hail when the forest falls down,
    ^(FN)and the city will be utterly laid low.
^20 (FO)Happy are you who sow beside all waters,
    who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.

33 ^(FP)Ah, you destroyer,
    who yourself have not been destroyed,
you traitor,
    whom none has betrayed!
When you have ceased to destroy,
    you will be destroyed;
and when you have finished betraying,
    they will betray you.
² O Lord, be gracious to us; ^(FQ)we wait for you.
    Be our arm every morning,
    our salvation in the time of trouble.
^3 (FR)At the tumultuous noise peoples flee;
    when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered,
⁴ and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers;
    ^(FS)as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.
^5 (FT)The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;
    he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness,
^6 (FU)and he will be the stability of your times,
    abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;
    the fear of the Lord is Zion's^[p] treasure.
⁷ Behold, their heroes cry in the streets;
    ^(FV)the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
^8 (FW)The highways lie waste;
    the traveller ceases.
^(FX)Covenants are broken;
    cities^[q] are despised;
    there is no regard for man.
^9 (FY)The land mourns and languishes;
    Lebanon is confounded and withers away;
Sharon is like a desert,
    and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
^10 (FZ)“Now I will arise,” says the Lord,
    “now I will lift myself up;
    now I will be exalted.
^11 (GA)You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble;
    your breath is ^(GB)a fire that will consume you.
¹² And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
    ^(GC)like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”
¹³ Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
    and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are afraid;
    trembling has seized the godless:
^(GD)“Who among us can dwell ^(GE)with the consuming fire?
    Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
^15 (GF)He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,
    who despises the gain of oppressions,
who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe,
    who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed
    ^(GG)and shuts his eyes from looking on evil,
¹⁶ he will dwell on the heights;
    his place of defence will be the fortresses of rocks;
    ^(GH)his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.
^17 (GI)Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty;
    ^(GJ)they will see a land that stretches afar.
^18 (GK)Your heart will muse on the terror:
    “Where is he who counted, where is ^(GL)he who weighed the tribute?
    Where is ^(GM)he who counted the towers?”
^19 (GN)You will see no more the insolent people,
    the people ^(GO)of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend,
    stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand.
²⁰ Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts!
    ^(GP)Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
    an untroubled habitation, an ^(GQ)immovable tent,
whose stakes will never be plucked up,
    nor will any of its cords be broken.
²¹ But there the Lord in majesty will be for us
    a place of ^(GR)broad rivers and streams,
^(GS)where no galley with oars can go,
    nor majestic ship can pass.
²² For the Lord is our ^(GT)judge; the Lord is our ^(GU)lawgiver;
    the Lord is our ^(GV)king; he will save us.
²³ Your cords hang loose;
    they cannot hold the mast firm in its place
    or keep the sail spread out.
^(GW)Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided;
    even ^(GX)the lame will take the prey.
²⁴ And no inhabitant will say, ^(GY)“I am sick”;
    ^(GZ)the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.

34 Draw near, ^(HA)O nations, to hear,
    and give attention, O peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;
    the world, and all that comes from it.
² For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,
    and furious against all their host;
    he has ^(HB)devoted them to destruction,^[r] has given them over for slaughter.
³ Their slain shall be cast out,
    and ^(HC)the stench of their corpses shall rise;
    ^(HD)the mountains shall flow with their blood.
^4 (HE)All the host of heaven shall rot away,
    and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall fall,
    as leaves fall from the vine,
    like leaves falling from the fig tree.
⁵ For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
    behold, it descends for judgement upon ^(HF)Edom,
    upon the people ^(HG)I have devoted to destruction.
⁶ The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood;
    it is gorged with fat,
    with the blood of lambs and goats,
    with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
^(HH)For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
    a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
^7 (HI)Wild oxen shall ^(HJ)fall with them,
    and ^(HK)young steers with ^(HL)the mighty bulls.
Their land shall drink its fill of blood,
    and their soil shall be gorged with fat.
^8 (HM)For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
    a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
^9 (HN)And the streams of Edom^[s] shall be turned into pitch,
    and her soil into sulphur;
    her land shall become burning pitch.
¹⁰ Night and day ^(HO)it shall not be quenched;
    ^(HP)its smoke shall go up for ever.
^(HQ)From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
    none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
^11 (HR)But the hawk and the porcupine^[t] shall possess it,
    the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
^(HS)He shall stretch the line of ^(HT)confusion^[u] over it,
    and the plumb line of emptiness.
¹² Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,
    and all its princes shall be nothing.
^13 (HU)Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
    nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of ^(HV)jackals,
    an abode for ostriches.^[v]
14 (HW)And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;
    the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;
indeed, there the night bird^[w] settles
    and finds for herself a resting-place.
¹⁵ There the owl nests and lays
    and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;
indeed, there ^(HX)the hawks are gathered,
    each one with her mate.
¹⁶ Seek and read from the book of the Lord:
    Not one of these shall be missing;
    none shall be without her mate.
For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,
    and his Spirit has gathered them.
^17 (HY)He has cast the lot for them;
    his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;
they shall possess it for ever;
    from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

35 ^(HZ)The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
    ^(IA)the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;
² it shall blossom abundantly
    and rejoice with joy and singing.
^(IB)The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
    the majesty of ^(IC)Carmel and ^(ID)Sharon.
^(IE)They shall see the glory of the Lord,
    the majesty of our God.
^3 (IF)Strengthen the weak hands,
    and make firm the feeble knees.
⁴ Say to those who have an anxious heart,
    “Be strong; fear not!
^(IG)Behold, your God
    will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
    He will come and save you.”
^5 (IH)Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
^6 (II)then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
    and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
^(IJ)For waters break forth in the wilderness,
    and streams in the desert;
^7 (IK)the burning sand shall become a pool,
    and the thirsty ground springs of water;
in the haunt of ^(IL)jackals, where they lie down,
    the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
^8 (IM)And a highway shall be there,
    and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
^(IN)the unclean shall not pass over it.
    It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
    even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.^[x]
9 No lion shall be there,
    nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
    but the redeemed shall walk there.
^10 (IO)And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with singing;
^(IP)everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain gladness and joy,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

“‘She despises you, she scorns you—
    ^(KI)the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you—
    the daughter of Jerusalem.
²³ “‘Whom have you mocked and reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
    Against ^(KJ)the Holy One of Israel!
²⁴ By your servants you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, ^(KK)With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of Lebanon,
^(KL)to cut down its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses,
to come to its remotest height,
    its most fruitful forest.
²⁵ I dug wells
    and drank waters,
to dry up with the sole of my foot
    all ^(KM)the streams ^(KN)of Egypt.
^26 (KO)“‘Have you not heard
    that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
    what now I bring to pass,
that you should make fortified cities
    crash into heaps of ruins,
²⁷ while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field
    and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
    blighted^[ab] before it is grown.
²⁸ “‘I know your sitting down
    and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
^29 (KP)Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come to my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
and ^(KQ)I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.’

¹⁰ I said, ^(LI)In the middle^[af] of my days
    I must depart;
I am consigned to the gates of Sheol
    for the rest of my years.
¹¹ I said, I shall not see the Lord,
    the Lord ^(LJ)in the land of the living;
I shall look on man no more
    among the inhabitants of the world.
¹² My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me
    ^(LK)like a shepherd's tent;
^(LL)like a weaver ^(LM)I have rolled up my life;
    ^(LN)he cuts me off from the loom;
^(LO)from day to night you bring me to an end;
^{13     (LP)}I calmed myself^[ag] until morning;
like a lion ^(LQ)he breaks all my bones;
    from day to night you bring me to an end.
¹⁴ Like ^(LR)a swallow or a crane I chirp;
    ^(LS)I moan like a dove.
^(LT)My eyes are weary with looking upwards.
    O Lord, I am oppressed; ^(LU)be my pledge of safety!
¹⁵ What shall I say? For he has spoken to me,
    and he himself has done it.
^(LV)I walk slowly all my years
    because of the bitterness of my soul.
^16 (LW)O Lord, by these things men live,
    and in all these is the life of my spirit.
    Oh restore me to health and make me live!
^17 (LX)Behold, it was for my welfare
    that I had great bitterness;
^(LY)but in love you have delivered my life
    from the pit of destruction,
^(LZ)for you have cast all my sins
    behind your back.
^18 (MA)For Sheol does not thank you;
    death does not praise you;
those who go down to the pit do not hope
    for your faithfulness.
¹⁹ The living, the living, he thanks you,
    as I do this day;
^(MB)the father makes known to the children
    your faithfulness.
²⁰ The Lord will save me,
    and we will play my music on stringed instruments
all the days of our lives,
    ^(MC)at the house of the Lord.