1A Prayer for the Poor; when he is deeply afflicted, and pours out his supplication before the Lord.

2Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to thee.

3Turn not away thy face from me: in the day when I am afflicted, incline thine ear to me: in the day when I shall call upon thee, speedily hear me.

4For my days have vanished like smoke, and my bones have been parched like a stick.

5I am blighted like grass, and my heart is dried up; for I have forgotten to eat my bread.

6By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bone has cleaved to my flesh.

7I have become like a pelican of the wilderness;

8I have become like an owl in a ruined house. I have watched, and am become as a sparrow dwelling alone on a roof.

9All the day long mine enemies have reproached me; and they that praised me have sworn against me.

10For I have eaten ashes as it were bread, and mingled my drink with weeping;

11because of thine anger and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and dashed me down.

12My days have declined like a shadow; and I am withered like grass.

13But thou, Lord, endurest for ever, and thy memorial to generation and generation.

14Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Sion: for it is time to have mercy upon her, for the set time is come.

15For thy servants have taken pleasure in her stones, and they shall pity her dust.

16So the nations shall fear thy name, O Lord, and all kings thy glory.

17For the Lord shall build up Sion, ¹⁹⁰and shall appear in his glory.

18He has had regard to the prayer of the lowly, and has not despised their petition.

19Let this be written for another generation; and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord.

20For he has looked out from the height of his sanctuary; the Lord looked upon the earth from heaven;

21to hear the groaning of the fettered ones, to loosen the sons of the slain;

22to proclaim the name of the Lord in Sion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

23when the people are gathered together, and the kings, to serve the Lord.

24He answered him in the way of his strength: tell me the fewness of my days.

25Take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are through all generations.

26In the ¹⁹¹beginning thou, O Lord, didst lay the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands.

27They shall perish, but thou remainest: and they all shall wax old as a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them, and they shall be changed.

28But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

29The children of thy servants shall dwell securely, and their seed shall ¹⁹²prosper for ever.