Psalms 31:9–18
In my deep anguish and social abandonment, I am like broken pottery, yet I entrust my times to Your hands, O Lord, seeking Your shining face and saving love.
9 Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
11 Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.
12 I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.
13 For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me, they plot to take away my life.
14 But I trust in you, Yahweh. I said, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.
16 Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.
17 Let me not be disappointed, Yahweh, for I have called on you. Let the wicked be disappointed. Let them be silent in Sheol.
18 Let the lying lips be mute, which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.
In my deep anguish and social abandonment, I am like broken pottery, yet I entrust my times to Your hands, O Lord, seeking Your shining face and saving love.
To express the profound physical and social distress of the psalmist and to reaffirm exclusive trust in God's providential timing and saving love.
Entrusting Life to the LORD in Distress
The faithful God shelters His distressed servant, receives his surrendered life, and strengthens all who hope in Him.