¹ I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

² Me hath he led, and brought into darkness, and not into light.

³ Surely against me hath he turned again and again his hand all the day.

⁴ My flesh and my skin hath he wasted away, he hath broken my bones.

⁵ He hath built against me, and encompassed [me] with gall and toil.

⁶ He hath made me to dwell in dark places as those that have been long dead.

⁷ He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

⁸ Even when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

⁹ He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.

¹⁰ He is unto me [as] a bear lying in wait, a lion in secret places.

¹¹ He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he hath made me desolate.

¹² He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

¹³ He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.

¹⁴ I am become a derision to all my people; their song all the day.

¹⁵ He hath sated me with bitterness, he hath made me drunk with wormwood.

¹⁶ He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.

¹⁷ And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I have forgotten prosperity.

¹⁸ And I said, My strength is perished, and my hope in Jehovah.

¹⁹ Remember thou mine affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the gall.

²⁰ My soul hath [them] constantly in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

²¹ -- This I recall to heart, therefore have I hope.

²² It is of Jehovah's loving-kindness we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not;

²³ they are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

²⁴ Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

²⁵ Jehovah is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul [that] seeketh him.

²⁶ It is good that one should both wait, and that in silence, for the salvation of Jehovah.

²⁷ It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth:

²⁸ He sitteth solitary and keepeth silence, because he hath laid it upon him;

²⁹ he putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope;

³⁰ he giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him; he is filled full with reproach.

³¹ For the Lord will not cast off for ever;

³² but if he have caused grief, he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses:

³³ for he doth not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

³⁴ To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵ to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,

³⁶ to wrong a man in his cause, -- will not the Lord see it?

³⁷ Who is he that saith, and there cometh to pass, what the Lord hath not commanded?

³⁸ Out of the mouth of the Most High doth not there proceed evil and good?

³⁹ Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

⁴⁰ Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Jehovah.

⁴¹ Let us lift up our heart with [our] hands unto ùGod in the heavens.

⁴² We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.

⁴³ Thou hast covered thyself with anger, and pursued us; thou hast slain, thou hast not spared.

⁴⁴ Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through.

⁴⁵ Thou hast made us the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

⁴⁶ All our enemies have opened their mouth against us.

⁴⁷ Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and ruin.

⁴⁸ Mine eye runneth down with streams of water for the ruin of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹ Mine eye poureth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,

⁵⁰ till Jehovah look down and behold from the heavens.

⁵¹ Mine eye affecteth my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.

⁵² They that are mine enemies without cause have chased me sore like a bird.

⁵³ They have cut off my life in a pit, and cast a stone upon me.

⁵⁴ Waters streamed over my head; I said, I am cut off.

⁵⁵ I called upon thy name, Jehovah, out of the lowest pit.

⁵⁶ Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my sighing, at my cry.

⁵⁷ Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee; thou saidst, Fear not.

⁵⁸ Lord, thou hast pleaded the cause of my soul, thou hast redeemed my life.

⁵⁹ Jehovah, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.

⁶⁰ Thou hast seen all their vengeance, all their imaginations against me.

⁶¹ Thou hast heard their reproach, O Jehovah, all their imaginations against me;

⁶² the lips of those that rise up against me and their meditation against me all the day.

⁶³ Behold thou their sitting down and their rising up: I am their song.

⁶⁴ Render unto them a recompence, O Jehovah, according to the work of their hands;

⁶⁵ give them obduracy of heart, thy curse unto them;

⁶⁶ pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Jehovah.

¹ And there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine which had been in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech the king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

² And Jehovah appeared to him and said, Go not down to Egypt: dwell in the land that I shall tell thee of.

³ Sojourn in this land; and I will be with thee and bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries; and I will perform the oath which I swore unto Abraham thy father.

⁴ And I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and unto thy seed will I give all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves --

⁵ because that Abraham hearkened to my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

⁶ And Isaac dwelt at Gerar.

⁷ And the men of the place asked about his wife. And he said, She is my sister; for he feared to say, my wife, [saying to himself,] Lest the men of the place slay me on account of Rebecca -- because she was fair in countenance.

⁸ And it came to pass when he had been there some time, that Abimelech the king of the Philistines looked out of the window, and saw, and behold, Isaac was dallying with Rebecca his wife.

⁹ Then Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, she is certainly thy wife; and how saidst thou, She is my sister? and Isaac said to him, Because I said, Lest I die on account of her.

¹⁰ And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done to us? But a little and one of the people might have lain with thy wife, and thou wouldest have brought a trespass on us.

¹¹ And Abimelech charged all the people, saying, He that touches this man or his wife shall certainly be put to death.

¹² And Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year a hundredfold; and Jehovah blessed him.

¹³ And the man became great, and he became continually greater, until he was very great.

¹⁴ And he had possessions of flocks, and possessions of herds, and a great number of servants; and the Philistines envied him.

¹⁵ And all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines stopped them and filled them with earth.

¹⁶ And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go from us; for thou art become much mightier than we.

¹⁷ And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his camp in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.

¹⁸ And Isaac dug again the wells of water that they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and that the Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham; and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.

¹⁹ And Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.

²⁰ But the shepherds of Gerar strove with Isaac's shepherds, saying, The water is ours. And he called the name of the well Esek, because they had quarrelled with him.

²¹ And they dug another well, and they strove for that also; and he called the name of it Sitnah.

²² And he removed thence and dug another well; and they did not strive for that. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, and said, For now Jehovah has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.

²³ And he went up thence to Beer-sheba.

²⁴ And Jehovah appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake.

²⁵ And he built an altar there, and called upon the name of Jehovah. And he pitched his tent there; and there Isaac's servants dug a well.

²⁶ And Abimelech, and Ahuzzath his friend, and Phichol the captain of his host, went to him from Gerar.

²⁷ And Isaac said to them, Why are ye come to me, seeing ye hate me, and have driven me away from you?

²⁸ And they said, We saw certainly that Jehovah is with thee; and we said, Let there be then an oath between us -- between us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee,

²⁹ that thou wilt do us no wrong, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done to thee nothing but good, and have let thee go in peace; thou art now blessed of Jehovah.

³⁰ And he made them a feast, and they ate and drank.

³¹ And they rose early in the morning, and swore one to another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.

³² And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well that they had dug, and said to him, We have found water.

³³ And he called it Shebah; therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.

³⁴ And Esau was forty years old, when he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basmath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.

³⁵ And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and to Rebecca.