For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.
For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink,
You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure.
I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
so that his life loathes bread, and his appetite the choicest food.
How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
My appetite refuses to touch them; they are as food that is loathsome to me.
“And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.
So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.” And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah.