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102:1 <A Prayer of the man who is in trouble, when he is overcome, and puts his grief before the Lord.> Give ear to my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you. 102:2 Let not your face be veiled from me in the day of my trouble; give ear to me, and let my cry be answered quickly. 102:3 My days are wasted like smoke, and my bones are burned up as in a fire. 102:4 My heart is broken; it has become dry and dead like grass, so that I give no thought to food. 102:5 Because of the voice of my sorrow, my flesh is wasted to the bone. 102:6 I am like a bird living by itself in the waste places; like the night-bird in a waste of sand. 102:7 I keep watch like a bird by itself on the house-top. 102:8 My haters say evil of me all day; those who are violent against me make use of my name as a curse. 102:9 I have had dust for bread and my drink has been mixed with weeping: 102:10 Because of your passion and your wrath, for I have been lifted up and then made low by you. 102:11 My days are like a shade which is stretched out; I am dry like the grass. 102:12 But you, O Lord, are eternal; and your name will never come to an end. 102:13 You will again get up and have mercy on Zion: for the time has come for her to be comforted. 102:14 For your servants take pleasure in her stones, looking with love on her dust. 102:15 So the nations will give honour to the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will be in fear of his glory: 102:16 When the Lord has put up the walls of Zion, and has been been in his glory; 102:17 When he has given ear to the prayer of the poor, and has not put his request on one side. 102:18 This will be put in writing for the coming generation, and the people of the future will give praise to the Lord. 102:19 For from his holy place the Lord has seen, looking down on the earth from heaven; 102:20 Hearing the cry of the prisoner, making free those for whom death is ordered; 102:21 So that they may give out the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem; 102:22 When the peoples are come together, and the kingdoms, to give worship to the Lord. 102:23 He has taken my strength from me in the way; he has made short my days. 102:24 I will say, O my God, take me not away before my time; your years go on through all generations: 102:25 In the past you put the earth on its base, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 102:26 They will come to an end, but you will still go on; they all will become old like a coat, and like a robe they will be changed: 102:27 But you are the unchanging One, and your years will have no end. 102:28 The children of your servants will have a safe resting-place, and their seed will be ever before you.