Psalm 102:3

The Message

I’m wasting away to nothing, I’m burning up with fever. I’m a ghost of my former self, half-consumed already by terminal illness. My jaws ache from gritting my teeth; I’m nothing but skin and bones. I’m like a buzzard in the desert, a crow perched on the rubble. Insomniac, I twitter away, mournful as a sparrow in the gutter. All day long my enemies taunt me, while others just curse. They bring in meals—casseroles of ashes! I draw drink from a barrel of my tears. And all because of your furious anger; you swept me up and threw me out. There’s nothing left of me— a withered weed, swept clean from the path.

Cross References

Psalm 31:3

You’re my cave to hide in, my cliff to climb. Be my safe leader, be my true mountain guide. Free me from hidden traps; I want to hide in you. I’ve put my life in your hands. You won’t drop me, you’ll never let me down.

Psalm 37:20

God-despisers have had it; God’s enemies are finished— Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air.

Psalm 38:3

I’ve lost twenty pounds in two months because of your accusation. My bones are brittle as dry sticks because of my sin. I’m swamped by my bad behavior, collapsed under an avalanche of guilt.

Lamentations 1:13

“He struck me with lightning, skewered me from head to foot, then he set traps all around so I could hardly move. He left me with nothing—left me sick, and sick of living.

Lamentations 3:4

He turned me into a skeleton of skin and bones, then broke the bones. He hemmed me in, ganged up on me, poured on the trouble and hard times. He locked me up in deep darkness, like a corpse nailed inside a coffin.