If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?
he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.
“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?
For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.
O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?
For you will put them to flight; you will aim at their faces with your bows.
If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him? And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?
He sings before men and says: ‘I sinned and perverted what was right, and it was not repaid to me.
You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me.
if I have concealed my transgressions as others do by hiding my iniquity in my heart,
Is not your evil abundant? There is no end to your iniquities.
I was at ease, and he broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target; his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with breach upon breach; he runs upon me like a warrior.
For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin;
For you write bitter things against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.
I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain? If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye, yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me.
For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.
“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.