I am like all others who are about to die; all my strength is gone.

I am abandoned among the dead; I am like the slain lying in their graves, those you have forgotten completely, who are beyond your help.

I thought that in this world of the living I would never again see the LORD Or any living person.

My life was cut off and ended, Like a tent that is taken down, Like cloth that is cut from a loom. I thought that God was ending my life.

You will break them with an iron rod; you will shatter them in pieces like a clay pot.' "

I am as useless as a discarded wineskin; yet I have not forgotten your commands.

You will be shattered like a clay pot, so badly broken that there is no piece big enough to pick up hot coals with or to dip water from a cistern."

After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special occasions and the other for ordinary use.

And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his anger and to make his power known. But he was very patient in enduring those who were the objects of his anger, who were doomed to destruction.

(SEE 2:26)