God's New Bible

The Book of Psalms

Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic

- Chapter 88 -

Day and night I cry out before you

1
Yahweh God, you who rescue me, all during each day I call out to you to help me, and I cry out to you during each night also.
2
Listen to my prayer while I cry out to you for help!
3
I have experienced many troubles, and I am about to die and go where dead people are.
4
Because I have no more strength, other people believe that I will soon die.
5
I am like a corpse that has been abandoned; I am like dead people who lie in their graves, people who have been completely forgotten because you do not take care of them anymore.
6
It is as though you have thrown me into a deep, dark pit, into a place where they throw corpses.
7
It seems as though you are very angry with me, and it is as though you have crushed me as ocean waves crash down on people.
8
You have caused my friends to avoid me; I have become repulsive to them. It is as though I were in a prison and cannot escape.
9
My eyes cannot see well because I cry very much. Yahweh, every day I call out to you to help me; I lift up my hands to you while I pray.
10
You certainly do not perform miracles for dead people! Their spirits do not arise to praise you!
11
Corpses in the grave certainly do not tell about your faithfully loving us, and in the place where people are finally destroyed, no one tells about what you faithfully do for us.
12
No one in the deep, dark pit ever sees the miracles that you perform, and no one in the place where people have been completely forgotten tells about your being good to us.
13
But as for me, Yahweh, I cry out to you to help me; each morning I pray to you.
14
Yahweh, why do you reject me? Why do you turn away from me?
15
All the time since I was young, I have suffered and have often almost died; I am in despair because of enduring the terrible things that you have done to me.
16
I feel that you have crushed me because of your being angry with me; the terrible things that you are doing to me are almost destroying me.
17
It is as though they surround me like a flood; they are closing in on me from all sides.
18
You have caused even my friends and others whom I love to avoid me, and it is as though the only friend that I have is darkness.

Day and night I cry out before you

1
LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you.
2
Let my prayer enter into your presence. Turn your ear to my cry.
3
For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol.(a)
4
I am counted among those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,
5
set apart among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand.
6
You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.
7
Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah.
8
You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.
9
My eyes are dim from grief. I have called on you daily, LORD. I have spread out my hands to you.
10
Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the departed spirits rise up and praise you? Selah.
11
Is your loving kindness declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in Destruction?
12
Are your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13
But to you, LORD, I have cried. In the morning, my prayer comes before you.
14
LORD, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?
15
I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted.
16
Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off.
17
They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me.
18
You have put lover and friend far from me, and my friends into darkness.

Footnotes

(a)88:3 Sheol is the place of the dead.