I'm overwhelmed with sorrow! sunk in a swamp of despair! I'm like someone who goes to the garden to pick cabbages and carrots and corn And returns empty-handed, finds nothing for soup or sandwich or salad.
I can take GOD's punishing rage. I deserve it--I sinned. But it's not forever. He's on my side and is going to get me out of this. He'll turn on the lights and show me his ways. I'll see the whole picture and how right he is.
And my enemy will see it, too, and be discredited--yes, disgraced! This enemy who kept taunting, "So where is this GOD of yours?" I'm going to see it with these, my own eyes-- my enemy disgraced, trash in the gutter.
All your dispersed and scattered people will come back, old friends and family from faraway places, From Assyria in the east to Egypt in the west, from across the seas and out of the mountains.
Shepherd, O GOD, your people with your staff, your dear and precious flock. Uniquely yours in a grove of trees, centered in lotus land. Let them graze in lush Bashan as in the old days in green Gilead.
Make them slink like snakes, crawl like cockroaches, come out of their holes from under their rocks And face our GOD. Fill them with holy fear and trembling.
Where is the god who can compare with you-- wiping the slate clean of guilt, Turning a blind eye, a deaf ear, to the past sins of your purged and precious people? You don't nurse your anger and don't stay angry long, for mercy is your specialty. That's what you love most.
You'll stay true to your word to Father Jacob and continue the compassion you showed Grandfather Abraham-- Everything you promised our ancestors from a long time ago.