How long, O Lord, will I call for help,
And You will not hear?
I cry out to You, “Violence!”
Yet You do not save.

“Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on.
But they will be held guilty,
They whose strength is their god.”

Are You not from everlasting,
O Lord, my God, my Holy One?
We will not die.
You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge;
And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.

Will they therefore empty their net
And continually slay nations without sparing?

I will stand on my guard post
And station myself on the rampart;
And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,
And how I may reply when I am reproved.

“For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

“Behold, as for the proud one,
His soul is not right within him;
But the righteous will live by his faith.

“Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him,
Even mockery and insinuations against him
And say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his—
For how long—
And makes himself rich with loans?’

“Will not your creditors rise up suddenly,
And those who collect from you awaken?
Indeed, you will become plunder for them.

“Because you have looted many nations,
All the remainder of the peoples will loot you—
Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,
To the town and all its inhabitants.

“Surely the stone will cry out from the wall,
And the rafter will answer it from the framework.

“For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.

“You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor.
Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness.
The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you,
And utter disgrace will come upon your glory.

“For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them,
Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,
To the town and all its inhabitants.

I heard and my inward parts trembled,
At the sound my lips quivered.
Decay enters my bones,
And in my place I tremble.
Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,
For the people to arise who will invade us.

Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.