1. HEAR MY prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to You.
2. Hide not Your face from me in the day when I am in distress! Incline Your ear to me; in the day when I call, answer me speedily.
3. For my days consume away like smoke, and my bones burn like a firebrand or like a hearth.
4. My heart is smitten like grass and withered, so that [in absorption] I forget to eat my food.
5. By reason of my loud groaning [from suffering and trouble] my flesh cleaves to my bones.
6. I am like a melancholy pelican or vulture of the wilderness; I am like a [desolate] owl of the waste places.
7. I am sleepless and lie awake [mourning], like a bereaved sparrow alone on the housetop.
8. My adversaries taunt and reproach me all the day; and they who are angry with me use my name as a curse.
9. For I have eaten the ashes [in which I sat] as if they were bread and have mingled my drink with weeping
10. Because of Your indignation and Your wrath, for You have taken me up and cast me away.
11. My days are like an evening shadow that stretches out and declines [with the sun]; and I am withered like grass.
12. But You, O Lord, are enthroned forever; and the fame of Your name endures to all generations.
13. You will arise and have mercy and loving-kindness for Zion, for it is time to have pity and compassion for her; yes, the set time has come [the moment designated]. [Ps. 12:5; 119:126.]
14. For Your servants take [melancholy] pleasure in the stones [of her ruins] and show pity for her dust.