³ Yet you are holy,
    enthroned on the praises of Israel.^(C)
4 In you our ancestors trusted;
    they trusted, and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.^(D)

⁶ But I am a worm and not human,
    scorned by others and despised by the people.^(E)
7 All who see me mock me;
    they sneer at me; they shake their heads;^(F)
8 “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
    let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”^(G)

⁹ Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
    you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.^(H)
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
    and since my mother bore me you have been my God.^(I)
11 Do not be far from me,
    for trouble is near,
    and there is no one to help.

¹² Many bulls encircle me;
    strong bulls of Bashan surround me;^(J)
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
    like a ravening and roaring lion.^(K)

¹⁴ I am poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
    it is melted within my breast;^(L)
15 my mouth^[a] is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
    you lay me in the dust of death.^(M)

³ “Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
    who is there who will give surety for me?^(C)
4 Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
    therefore you will not let them triumph.^(D)
5 Those who denounce friends for reward—
    the eyes of their children will fail.^(E)

⁶ “He has made me a byword of the peoples,
    and I am one before whom people spit.^(F)
7 My eye has grown dim from grief,
    and all my members are like a shadow.^(G)
8 The upright are appalled at this,
    and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
⁹ Yet the righteous hold to their way,
    and they who have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.^(H)
10 But you, come back now, all of you,
    and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
¹¹ My days are past; my plans are broken off,
    the desires of my heart.^(I)
12 They make night into day;
    ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’^[a]
13 If I look for Sheol as my house,
    if I spread my couch in darkness,^(J)
14 if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’
    and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’^(K)
15 where then is my hope?
    Who will see my hope?^(L)
16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
    Shall we descend together into the dust?”^(M)

“Today, if you hear his voice,^(A)
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
    as on the day of testing in the wilderness,
⁹ where your ancestors put me to the test,^[a]
though they had seen my works ¹⁰     for forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation,
and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts,
    and they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ As in my anger I swore,
    ‘They will not enter my rest.’ ”

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”^(B)