Psalms 88:4–6

¹UNTO thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

⁹But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

¹⁷Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

¹⁸For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

⁷Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

¹²I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

⁴For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.

¹MY breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

⁹What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?

²⁰When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living;

⁶I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.

²²For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

²³I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.

²⁴My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.

⁶For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

⁸He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

²²For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.

⁹Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

¹⁰All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?

¹¹Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

¹²How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

²³Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever:

¹⁸Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.

¹⁹Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.

²⁰They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.

²¹The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.

²²Asshur is there and all her company: his graves are about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:

²³Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave: all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living.

²⁴There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.

²⁵They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword: though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit: he is put in the midst of them that be slain.

²⁶There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living.

²⁷And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

²⁸Yea, thou shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with them that are slain with the sword.

²⁹There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.

³⁰There be the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, which are gone down with the slain; with their terror they are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to the pit.

³¹Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord God.

³²For I have caused my terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.

²⁹¶ And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.

¹AND God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

¹⁰I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

¹¹I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

¹²Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

¹⁰If he cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder him?

⁹Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

¹²I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

¹⁶Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

¹⁵Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

¹³For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

⁴⁶I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

²He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

³For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

²He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

²²For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

¹³Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

⁶And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

⁵⁵¶ I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.

¹⁹The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.

¹OUT of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.