When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see.
You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
They make night into day: ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’
“O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.
my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
I am gone like a shadow at evening; I am shaken off like a locust.
I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.