1 LORD, you are the God who saves me;
I cry out both night and day.
2 May my pleading come before you;
turn your ear to me, I pray.
3 For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to death.
4 Counted with the ones who perish,
I have neither strength nor breath.
5 To the grave I am abandoned,
like all those already there.
You remember them no longer;
they are cut off from your care.
6 Deep into a pit you cast me,
deep within the darkest place;
7 there your wrath lies heavy on me,
I am crushed by all your waves.
8 You have made my friends forsake me,
made me loathsome in their eyes.
I am trapped, cut off from rescue;
9 deep distress has dimmed my sight.
Daily, LORD, I call upon you;
stretching out my hands to you.
10 Do you show the dead our wonders?
Do the dead rise up and praise?
11 Is your love shown in destruction—
in the grave your faithfulness?
12 Are your wonders known in darkness,
or in death your righteousness?
13 But I cry to you for help, LORD;
at the dawn to you I pray.
14 Why, O LORD, do you reject me,
and why turn your face away?
15 Stricken and distressed from childhood,
death to me is always near.
16 Your fierce anger has engulfed me;
I am crushed by your terrors.
17 All day long they overwhelm me;
this is how my troubles end.
18 You have taken all my loved ones
and deep darkness is my friend.
– vv.1-4, 6-10, 15 Trinity Psalter Hymnal;
vv. 5, 11-14 Sing Psalms, vv. 16-18 Benner
Oremus 