1-6 I’m overwhelmed with sorrow!sunk in a swamp of despair!I’m like someone who goes to the gardento pick cabbages and carrots and cornAnd returns empty-handed,finds nothing for soup or sandwich or salad.There’s not a decent person in sight.Right-living humans are extinct.They’re all out for one another’s blood,animals preying on each other.They’ve all become experts in evil.Corrupt leaders demand bribes.The powerful richmake sure they get what they want.The best and brightest are thistles.The top of the line is crabgrass.But no longer: It’s exam time.Look at them slinking away in disgrace!Don’t trust your neighbor,don’t confide in your friend.Watch your words,even with your spouse.Neighborhoods and families are falling to pieces.The closer they are—sons, daughters, in-laws—The worse they can be.Your own family is the enemy.
7 But me, I’m not giving up.I’m sticking around to see what God will do.I’m waiting for God to make things right.I’m counting on God to listen to me.
8-10 Don’t, enemy, crow over me.I’m down, but I’m not out.I’m sitting in the dark right now,but God is my light.I can take God’s punishing rage.I deserve it—I sinned.But it’s not forever. He’s on my sideand is going to get me out of this.He’ll turn on the lights and show me his ways.I’ll see the whole picture and how right he is.And my enemy will see it, too,and be discredited—yes, disgraced!This enemy who kept taunting,“So where is this God of yours?”I’m going to see it with these, my own eyes—my enemy disgraced, trash in the gutter.
11-13 Oh, that will be a day! A day for rebuilding your city,a day for stretching your arms, spreading your wings!All your dispersed and scattered people will come back,old friends and family from faraway places,From Assyria in the east to Egypt in the west,from across the seas and out of the mountains.But there’ll be a reversal for everyone else—massive depopulation—because of the way they lived, the things they did.