102:1Give ear to my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you.

102:2Let not your face be veiled from me in the day of my trouble; give ear to me, and let my cry be answered quickly.

102:3My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire.

102:4My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food.

102:5Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone.

102:6I am like a bird living by itself in the waste places; like the night-bird in a waste of sand.

102:7I keep watch like a bird by itself on the house-top.

102:8My haters say evil of me all day; those who are violent against me make use of my name as a curse.

102:9I have had dust for bread and my drink has been mixed with weeping:

102:10Because of your passion and your wrath, for I have been lifted up and then made low by you.

102:11My days are like a shade which is stretched out; I am dry like the grass.

102:12But you, O Lord, are eternal; and your name will never come to an end.

102:13You will again get up and have mercy on Zion: for the time has come for her to be comforted.

102:14For your servants take pleasure in her stones, looking with love on her dust.

102:15So the nations will give honour to the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will be in fear of his glory:

102:16When the Lord has put up the walls of Zion, and has been been in his glory;

102:17When he has given ear to the prayer of the poor, and has not put his request on one side.

102:18This will be put in writing for the coming generation, and the people of the future will give praise to the Lord.

102:19For from his holy place the Lord has seen, looking down on the earth from heaven;

102:20Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered;

102:21So that they may give out the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

102:22When the peoples are come together, and the kingdoms, to give worship to the Lord.

102:23He has taken my strength from me in the way; he has made short my days.

102:24I will say, O my God, take me not away before my time; your years go on through all generations:

102:25In the past you put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

102:26They will come to an end, but you will still go on; they all will become old like a coat, and like a robe they will be changed:

102:27But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end.