Our children will live safely
This is a prayer for someone who suffers, when he feels weak and wants to complain to the Lord.
1Lord, please listen to my prayer.
I beg You to help me.
Please answer me.
2Please don't look away from me.
I am suffering.
Please listen when I pray to You
and answer me soon.
3Because my days go by like smoke,
my life disappears,
and the bones in my body burn like fire.
4I am sad and feel like grass
that has been cut off and dried out.
I don't feel like eating any food.
5I keep on complaining of pain,
and I am so thin that my skin hangs from my bones.
6I am like a desert owl,
like an owl among heaps of stones.
7I can not sleep. I am like a bird
sitting alone on a roof.
8My enemies mock me all day.
People who say bad things to me
use my name when they
want to curse other people.
9I eat ashes for my food,
and when I drink something,
it is full of my tears.
10This is because You are angry
with me.
You picked me up and threw me away.
11My life is almost over.
It is like shadows
that disappear in the afternoon,
or like grass that has dried.
12But, You, O Lord,
will be King forever,
and every generation knows your name.
13You will come and have mercy on Zion,
because the time has come for You
to be good to the city.
Yes, now is the time.
14Jerusalem is just a heap of stones,
but we, your servants,
love every stone of the city,
and we feel sorry for her dust.
15The other nations will fear the name
of the Lord and all the kings of the earth
will become afraid when they see your glory.
16Yes, the Lord will build Zion again,
and people will see his glory in the city.
17He listens to the prayers
of people who have nothing.
Their prayers are important to Him.
18You must write it down so that
the generations that
come later can read it,
so that the children who
will be born later can praise the Lord.
19They will praise Him because
He looked down from his holy heaven
above and He looked down at the earth.
20He heard the prayers of the prisoners
who complained and sighed.
They would have died,
but the Lord saved them
21so that they could tell people in Zion
about the name of the Lord
and praise Him in Jerusalem,
22when the people of all the nations
come together and people from other lands
come to worship the Lord.
23The Lord made me weak
when I was young.
He made my life short.
24I said: ‘My God,
please don't take away my life now.
I am only in the middle of it.
My life must not stop now.
But You, O God, live forever,
and your life goes on and on.
25Long ago You made the earth
and your hands made the heaven.
26Earth and heaven will disappear
but You will always be there.
They will become like old clothes and disappear.
You will change them like clothes
and throw them away.
27But You will always be the same.
You live forever.
28Our children will live safely,
and our descendants will live with You.’
