Psalm 88:1-18
(A song; a psalm of the sons of Korah; of the Director; to “Mahalath”; for intonation; meditative, of Heman the Ezrahite’s.)
88 Jehovah, my God, I clamor by day,I cry in your presence by night.
2 Let my prayer come before you,bend your ear to my appeal,
3 Because my soul has its fill of evilsand my being is touching the realm of the shades,
4 I rank as down in the Pit,I have become like a man beyond assistance,
5 Free among the dead,like stabbed men, men lying in graves,Whom you no longer remember,they being sundered from your hand;
6 You have laid me in the bottom of the Pit,in depths of darkness and abysses of ooze.
7 On me your ire rests its weightand you have brought in all your breakers. (Selah)
8 You have taken my acquaintances far away from me,made me an object of abhorrence to them,Shut up so that I cannot get out;
9 my eye has grown hopeless with misery.I have called to you, Jehovah, every day,have laid my hands out toward you.
10 Will you do wonders for the dead,or will shades stand up and give you thanks? (Selah)
11 Will your friendliness be told of in the grave,your faithfulness in the land of the gone forever?
12 Will your wonders be made known in the darknessand your right-doing in the land of forgottenness?
13 But I, Jehovah, clamor to youand in the morning my prayer presents itself to you.
14 Why do you disown my soul, Jehovah,veil your face from me?
15 From a child I have been wretched and worn,have carried your terrors, been unnerved,
16 Your blasts of anger have swept over me,your overwhelmings have annihilated me,
17 They have swept around me like water all day,united to hem me in.
18 You have taken lover and friend far away from me,my acquaintances are darkness—
