I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.
“He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten your statutes.
You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin and meditate on treachery all day long.
Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and Amen.
its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a sherd is found for taking fire from the hearth or dipping water out of the cistern.
to rule them with an iron scepter, as when clay pots are shattered—