10I said, “In the middle of my life
         I am to enter the gates of Sheol;
         I am to be deprived of the rest of my years.”

11I said, “I will not see the LORD,
         The LORD in the land of the living;
         I will look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world.

12“Like a shepherd’s tent my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me;
         As a weaver I rolled up my life.
         He cuts me off from the loom;
         From day until night You make an end of me.

13“I composed my soul until morning.
         Like a lion—so He breaks all my bones,
         From day until night You make an end of me.

14“Like a swallow, like a crane, so I twitter;
         I moan like a dove;
         My eyes look wistfully to the heights;
         O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security.

15“What shall I say?
         For He has spoken to me, and He Himself has done it;
         I will wander about all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.

16“O Lord, by these things men live,
         And in all these is the life of my spirit;
         O restore me to health and let me live!

17“Lo, for my own welfare I had great bitterness;
         It is You who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness,
         For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

18“For Sheol cannot thank You,
         Death cannot praise You;
         Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness.

19“It is the living who give thanks to You, as I do today;
         A father tells his sons about Your faithfulness.

20“The LORD will surely save me;
         So we will play my songs on stringed instruments
         All the days of our life at the house of the LORD.”

      21Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.” 22Then Hezekiah had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”

NASB ©1995