Let a cry for help go up from their houses, when you send an armed band on them suddenly: for they have made a hole in which to take me, and have put nets for my feet secretly.
Those who have a desire to take my life put nets for me; those who are designing my destruction say evil things against me, all the day their minds are full of deceit.
Is evil to be the reward of good? for they have made a deep hole for my soul. Keep in mind how I took my place before you, to say a good word for them so that your wrath might be turned away from them.
For numbers of them say evil secretly in my hearing there is fear on every side: they say, Come, let us give witness against him; all my nearest friends, who are watching for my fall, say, It may be that he will be taken by deceit, and we will get the better of him and give him punishment.
May that man be like the towns overturned by the Lord without mercy: let a cry for help come to his ears in the morning, and the sound of war in the middle of the day;
A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.
O daughter of my people, put on haircloth, rolling yourself in the dust: give yourself to sorrow, as for an only son, with most bitter cries of grief; for he who makes waste will come on us suddenly.