Do Not Hide Your Face From Me

1A Prayer for the Poor; when he is deeply afflicted, and pours out his supplication before the Lord. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to thee.

2Turn 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.

3For my days have vanished like smoke, and my bones have been parched like a stick.

4I am blighted like grass, and my heart is dried up; for I have forgotten to eat my bread.

5By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bone has cleaved to my flesh.

6I have become like a pelican of the wilderness;

7I have become like an owl in a ruined house. I have watched, and am become as a sparrow dwelling alone on a roof.

8All the day long mine enemies have reproached me; and they that praised me have sworn against me.

9For I have eaten ashes as it were bread, and mingled my drink with weeping;

10because of thine anger and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and dashed me down.

11My days have declined like a shadow; and I am withered like grass.

12But thou, Lord, endurest for ever, and thy memorial to generation and generation.

13Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Sion: for it is time to have mercy upon her, for the set time is come.

14For thy servants have taken pleasure in her stones, and they shall pity her dust.

15So the nations shall fear thy name, O Lord, and all kings thy glory.

16For the Lord shall build up Sion, and shall appear in his glory.

17He has had regard to the prayer of the lowly, and has not despised their petition.

18Let this be written for another generation; and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord.

19For he has looked out from the height of his sanctuary; the Lord looked upon the earth from heaven;

20to hear the groaning of the fettered ones, to loosen the sons of the slain;

21to proclaim the name of the Lord in Sion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

22when the people are gathered together, and the kings, to serve the Lord.

23He answered him in the way of his strength: tell me the fewness of my days.

24Take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are through all generations.

25In the beginning thou, O Lord, didst lay the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands.

26They 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.

27But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

28The children of thy servants shall dwell securely, and their seed shall prosper for ever.