LORD! I know my own sins!
They are with me!
Why, why LORD do the heathen try to destroy me?
Why, why LORD do they this thing?
Why do they continually try to throw Your beloved in prison?
Why do they continually try to assault me with their tongue?
LORD! Have I done this thing to them?
No! I listened to the Prophet’s words
And I submitted my yoke to Babylon.
I did not fight it.
I did not make haste.
I did not say, “Yes! I was innocent.”
Because, LORD, surely You know I was not.
When my sins came to remembrance
I put off my outer garment
And I repented in ashes
And fasting.
When I had fasted,
My own kin had made it my shame.
I had mourned, and I had wept
I had known I had done this abomination in Your sight.
Why then, when I am at peace
And in the land
Do these come upon me
And try to break me with their tongues?
Why LORD! When I have honored You.
I had not resisted.
I had not said, “I was surely innocent.”
For I knew I had done this abomination in Your sight.
Why then do my enemies try to pounce?
Why then do they try to put my soul in bonds
And my dove into prison?
I had not done anything!
Yes, what I had done, LORD,
Surely You know
What I had done, LORD,
You had corrected me.
You had stricken me.
You had cleansed my soul.
LORD, when I was among the heathen
I was just like one of them.
Then they rejoiced at my sin.
They said, “Eat, drink, be merry!
“For You are one of us!”
So it is not for my sin
But my repentance
That I have found myself an enemy.
LORD, for their shame
They try to take me to the grave.
They even seek to kill my soul.
LORD, I am fragile
And I cannot bear my own sins.
Surely, if every sin had been numbered
And every sin laid to my account
LORD, I would be encumbered and destroyed.
But, LORD, I know You are with me
For when I cry, You listen.
When I pray, Your ear is ready to hear.
In the time of great waters
I had not raised my prayer
But before it.
LORD, the waters threaten to lay me up to the neck
But LORD, why do these heathen try to take my life?
Had I not laid silently?
Had I not succumbed to justice?
Had I fought it, or done any thing otherwise unwholesome?
When I saw I had sinned, I had laid it to Thy account
To render unto me what was my just due.
And I had received double for all my sins
According to the Heathen’s justice.
I had not laid a cry.
I had not tried to fight my bondage
Which was right, and You had put me unto chains.
No, I had laid my yoke, and let it stay.
Now my bonds are broken,
And they try to take from me
And to put me back under bonds.
No… they shall not.
For their trap shall spring on them like a wild animal
Bereaved of its cub.
It shall come upon them as a bear
Furious for meat
And it shall tear them.
For my sin, I had been recompensed double.
For the injury they had done to Your servant Israel
To not allow him to come out of his bonds
You, You LORD shall recompense the Heathen.
Why should a man suffer an entire lifetime
For the sins he has committed?
Is not grace sufficient?
Is not justice paid its due to the heathen
Who do not cry about an injury
But because of vanity?
They cry because of their own vanity
And not that this evil had been done.
For the evil I could suffer, yet but a little longer.
For even for evil, they ought not recompense a man
For his whole life.
For the LORD has spoken to me:
“I will touch you.”
And LORD, I ask that I never see chains again.
LORD, I ask this because I am innocent
And washed in Your blood.
I had this stain upon my conscience
And needed it lifted.
In my pride I had gone and tried to recompense my salvation to myself.
When I had sinned, in conceiving vanity to save me
I learned that my own mouth or hand could not save me.
Therefore, LORD, I had laid unto the yoke
And let Your waves pass over me.
Night after night, and day after day
I mourned, I fasted, I had loosed the bonds of my sin.
Yet, the Heathen grew even more wrathful
At my chastity, for no longer was I the one who had committed offense
But they. They for trying to lengthen my bonds.
LORD, even soldiers and warriors and spies
Had encamped against me, and LORD, surely You know
They sought my life while I was in my captivity.
Why, then, do they continually try to lay this evil upon me
When I have suffered and have paid my due
Double for my sin?
LORD, do not let their plans prosper.
For even brethren are lifted up against Your servant.
And LORD, I cannot bear my own shame
Lest I be destroyed.
Certainly You know my sins
And have hidden them in Your mercy.
For they are against You, and no one else.
It is You who I have sinned against.
Let not Your servant Israel taste of the captivity a second time.
His soul could not bear it.
Amen.
B. K. Neifert 