A psalm that expresses sadness, written for the choir director by Zerah’s son Heman, one of the descendants of Korah

1Yahweh God, you who rescues me, all during each day I call out to you to help me,
and I cry out to you during each night also.

2Listen [IDM] to my prayer [DOU], while I cry out to you for help!

3I have experienced many troubles/difficulties, and I am about to die [MTY] and go where dead people are.

4Because I have no more strength, other people also consider that I will soon die.

5I 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 any more.

6It is as though you have thrown me into a deep, dark pit, into a place where they throw corpses.

7It seems like you are very angry with me,
and it is as though you have crushed me like ocean waves crash down on people [MET]. (Think about that!)

8You have caused my friends to ◄avoid/stay away from► me; I have become repulsive to them. It is as though I am in a prison and cannot escape.

9My 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.

10You certainly do not [RHQ] perform miracles for dead people!
Their spirits do not [RHQ] arise to praise you! (Think about that!)

11Corpses in the grave certainly do not tell about your faithfully loving us [RHQ], and in the place where people are finally destroyed,
no one tells about what you faithfully do for us [RHQ].

12No one in the deep dark pit ever sees the miracles that you perform [RHQ], and no one in the place where people have been completely forgotten tells about your being good to us.

13But as for me, Yahweh, I cry out to you to help me; each morning I pray to you.

14Yahweh, why do you reject me [RHQ]? Why do you turn away from me [RHQ]?

15All the time since I was young, I have suffered and have often almost died;
I am ◄in despair/very discouraged► because of enduring the terrible things that you have done to me.

16I 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.

17I feel as though they surround me like a flood [SIM]; they are ◄closing in on/crushing► me from all sides.

18You 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.