See how I love your instructions, LORD. Your love never changes, so save me!

Be merciful to me, O LORD! See the sufferings my enemies cause me! Rescue me from death, O LORD,

Look at me, O LORD my God, and answer me. Restore my strength; don't let me die.

Don't let my enemies say, "We have defeated him." Don't let them gloat over my downfall.

See how many enemies I have; see how much they hate me.

Then the LORD said, "I have seen how cruelly my people are being treated in Egypt; I have heard them cry out to be rescued from their slave drivers. I know all about their sufferings,

and so I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of Egypt to a spacious land, one which is rich and fertile and in which the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites now live.

"O God, our God, how great you are! How terrifying, how powerful! You faithfully keep your covenant promises. From the time when Assyrian kings oppressed us, even till now, how much we have suffered! Our kings, our leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors, and all our people have suffered. Remember how much we have suffered!

Look, O LORD! Why are you punishing us like this? Women are eating the bodies of the children they loved! Priests and prophets are being killed in the Temple itself !

Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us. Look at us, and see our disgrace.

I take pleasure in your laws; your commands I will not forget.

Your commandment is with me all the time and makes me wiser than my enemies.

I am always ready to risk my life; I have not forgotten your law.

I am unimportant and despised, but I do not neglect your teachings.

I wander about like a lost sheep; so come and look for me, your servant, because I have not neglected your laws.