My God, My God, why have You forsake Me?

“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

—Bob Parsons

Jesus Last Words God Will Never Leave You!

Matthew 27:45-49, John 11:17-21, 30-37

17 So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off; 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.20 Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. 21 Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 

30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They *said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”

Intro:  I want you to know that God will never leave you.  Have you ever heard this when you read, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”?

I want you to know that He will never leave you before we say good-bye for today.  I want you to seek how much Jesus loves you.  I want you to know that when you have to wait, Jesus will do way more for you than you can imagine.  I want you to know that Jesus will do what ever it takes to bring you salvation and see you home. Let’s take a look at this.

17 So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off; 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.20 Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. 21 Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 

30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They *said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”

Do you hear Martha and Mary both asking Jesus why he had forsaken them in this story?  “If you would have been here, my brother would not have died.”  They said to Jesus, You don’t care about us.  You don’t love us.

Video: Martha

While we do not know for sure, it is interesting to consider what someone like Jesus’ friend, Martha, might have been feeling and thinking about if she was present to hear what Jesus said when He was on the cross. When Jesus said His fourth word of the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), imagine how those words might have stirred Martha in her heart, mind, and soul. Martha had experienced what it feels like to be forsaken. She felt forsaken by her friend, Jesus, when He was not present at the time her brother, Lazarus, died. She was disappointed and distraught that Jesus was not there when Lazarus’ sickness led not to another of Jesus’ miraculous recoveries, but rather to his death and a tomb.

Martha’s feelings ended up shifting shortly after Jesus did arrive, but once a person feels the sting of being forsaken, even if misplaced, one does not forget that sensation.

While Mary and Martha may not have forgotten the feeling of being forsaken neither did they forget that they were greatly loved by Jesus.

Jesus will never leave us for…

God Loves Us

Mary and Martha didn’t know how much Jesus loved her brother and them.  Bus as they saw how Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit, they began to understand.  Then scripture says, “Jesus wept.”  Even the guests at Mary and Martha’s home noticed how much Jesus loved them.  In verse 5 of this chapter it says that, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

For four days Mary and Martha questioned Jesus’ love for Lazarus and them.  They felt so forsaken.  They thought they did not matter to Jesus. 

But when Jesus arrived things changed. He wept with them.  He cared about them and He revealed more about Himself.  He raised their brother from death.

Listen, as I read from Matthew 27:45-49

45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour.46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” 47 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48 Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. 49 But the rest of them said, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.”

When Jesus spoke those words dealing with feeling forsaken from the cross, did those words trigger the feelings of being forsaken by Jesus?  Did she remember how she felt when Jesus had forsaken them?  Did she also remember that Jesus raised her brother from the dead?  Do you think maybe she thought, “Oh Jesus, God has not and will not forsake you.  He loves you.  He is the resurrection and the Life.” 

That is the message I want you to hear.  Jesus loves you.  When He is on the cross saying, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me”, it is because of His great love for us.  When you hear of Jesus great suffering at the hands of those who mocked Him and beat Him, hear “I love you!”  When you hear, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Hear, “I love you”  When you see the cross never miss seeing the biggest and most powerful “I love you” ,that you can imagine.

Listen to this verse. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Mary and Martha knew they were not forsaken and they knew Jesus was not forsaken.  No, they didn’t think that Jesus would raise their brother from the dead. No, they didn’t think that they would discover something about God that didn’t know.  But here Jesus is to reveal something that would change their lives.  In a similar way as Lazarus, Jesus would rise from the dead. Lazarus would die again but Jesus would not.  He is the resurrection and the Life and He loves us.

He was placed in a tomb for several days but Jesus raised him from the dead. He was on His way at a rapid pace to breathing His final breath before death. Afterwards, He would be taken down from the cross and laid in a tomb as a dead man just as His friend, Lazarus was a few days earlier. At that time all Martha and her sister Mary could do was watch, hope, pray and send word to their friend, Jesus, asking Him for help. Jesus did come to them. At first, they thought He was too late. They felt forsaken by their friend. They felt hurt. They were at a loss

If Martha heard Jesus say what He said on the cross, did this whole scene from John 11 race back to her mind?

While Martha may have felt forsaken at first, there is indeed always hope for a different ending in the story. She experienced that first hand with Jesus and Lazarus when He called her brother out from death and darkness. Perhaps what seemed imminent and final at the cross might have a twist in time as well. Regardless, at the moment Jesus uttered the fourth word, He was feeling forsaken.

The fourth word Jesus spoke from the cross was a magnificent word that has been hard to understand fully as words coming from the lips of the Son of God about His Heavenly Father. However, make no mistake about it, He meant to say them and did not regret what He said.

Nevertheless, we sometimes say things we regret. After we say some words and they escape the safety of our lips, at times we wish that we could grab those words, stuff them back in our mouths and swallow them down into the depths of our insides. Have you ever had one of those moments when right after you said something, you had an “OH NO,” experience? You wanted those words back and would stuff them deep down inside if you only could do it?

There is a moment in one of the classic Christmas movies called A Christmas Story starring Peter Billingsley, that his character has an “OH NO” moment. His character named Ralphie says something that he wishes with all his might he would not have said. In this scene, Ralphie and his family are coming back home from a family outing, and are singing Christmas songs, when all the sudden we hear the car they are riding in have a blowout.

Ralphie’s dad gets out of the car to change the flat, and his mom turns to Ralphie and suggests that he go and help his dad change the tire. It was intended to be kind of a father-son bonding time. The dad gives Ralphie the job of holding the hubcap where his dad puts the , and then all the sudden Ralphie ends up messing up the moment with his dad as the hubcap and lugnuts from the tire go flying when the tire is being changed. That’s when the “OH NO” moment occurs. We don’t hear exactly what he says, but we know that Ralphie says the “Queen Mother of all Dirty Words.” And he gets in so much trouble when he gets home as he gets his mouth washed out with soap.

While Ralphie’s mom interrogates him about where he heard that “Queen Mother of all the Dirty Words” in the first place, he blames it on his friend Schwartz. However, Ralphie then says, “Now I had heard my father say that word every day of my life.”

It was his father who had sewn that word into Ralphie’s soul over time. When his life got filled up with fear and anguish in the tire-changing-lug-nut-losing moment with his dad, those emotions flooded his insides and what was deep down inside of his heart overflowed out of his mouth.

It was as if Ralphie’s dad had put something down in his son’s soul; when his insides got flooded with emotion and fear in that moment, the flood that poured into him caused those sown in seeds of dirty words to rise to the top and then overflow out of his mouth.

Jesus said it like this,

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“Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34, (NIV)

As we consider the fourth word from the cross, listen to it and look at it through that lens: “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” What we hear Jesus say during this moment on the cross is what is surfacing from the depths of His heart and soul as He is being flooded on the inside with everything that was in the cup He asked His Father not to make Him drink in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before.

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus was having some FaceTime with His Heavenly Father. He tells His Father who is in Heaven, “If there is any other way for Me to rescue the world from sin, death, Satan, and hell besides having to drink what is in this cup, let’s go to plan “B.” I would rather not drink the wrath of God and have My soul flooded with the sin of humanity if there is any other way.”

And God the Father says, “There is no other way. If You want to save the world, then You have to drink the cup.”

And Jesus says, “Not My will…but Your will be done. Let’s do it…I’ll take the flooding of My soul if it means We get FaceTime with humanity throughout eternity.”

The scene leading to the fourth word from the cross then unfolds in Matthew 27:35-49.

“And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” Matthew 27:35-49 ESV

Notice again the fourth words that Jesus cried out in verse 46?

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46

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It’s hard to hear Jesus say those words. At face value, those words are bothersome. Those words seem to go against the nature and character of who we understand God to be. Nobody really wants to think about God being a God who might turns His back on someone. I don’t want to think about God leaving me when I need Him the most.

However, I do love the fact that Jesus seems to be one who if you asked Him in the moment when He is in his deepest pain, “How’s everything going, Jesus?” He isn’t one who just goes, “Fine. Fine. Everything’s just fine.”

We do that sometimes.
Someone asks, “How’s it going?” We respond, “Fine.”

However, things may be everything but “Fine.” On the inside what we really feel like saying is: “I feel forsaken. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s basically what Martha said to Jesus when her brother died, and Jesus showed up two days later. “Jesus, I feel like you have forsaken me!”

There is something refreshing and appealing in that Jesus is the God who gets raw, real and honest as He shares what’s in the depths of His soul. When the wrath of God began to flow from the cup into His life, what overflows out of the mouth of Jesus is what had been sown into the heart of Jesus for years and years and years.

“My God, My God…WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”

Let’s explore what it means that these words were sown into the heart of Jesus for years and years and years. It goes back to the school curriculum for Jewish boys in the first century. Their school work was to memorize sections of the Old Testament.

The Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, was what was sown into their hearts and lives from a very young age. Jesus was a Jewish boy who would have had the Old Testament sown into His soul, heart, and life. When Jesus cries out from the cross, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” What is overflowing from the depths of His heart is the first line from a Psalm that He would have memorized and had sown into His soul from the early years of His life.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” Psalm 22:1

The fourth word from the cross that Jesus cries out are the lyrics to a song He would have memorized that were deep in His soul. Psalm 22 is known as a song of lament. It was a song that people would sing and say when they were in a time of suffering. Most Jews in Jesus’ day would have recognized and known this song. This is the song people sang when they were experiencing pain in their lives.

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It is interesting that in our day, the song people often turn to and even memorize is Psalm 23. However, few people likely memorize Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 has at least two parts. The first part of the Psalm is about all the pain, suffering and feelings of abandonment. However, halfway through the Psalm, it shifts from pain and suffering to hope and what’s coming around the corner: The Kingdom of God and a new day when God will deliver His people and bring forth a victory worth celebrating throughout the ages.

Jesus had the whole song in mind just as His contemporaries would have on that day. Some songs are just the songs you sing at different occasions. On your birthday you sing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY. On Christmas Eve at the Candlelight Service you sing: SILENT NIGHT. On New Year’s Eve after the clock strikes midnight you sing: AULD LANG SYNE. During the 7th inning stretch of a baseball game you sing: TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME.

And in the first century when a Jewish person was in the midst of suffering and pain, the song that overflows from the depths of their heart was Psalm 22 which starts out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

That may be strange as twenty-first-century people living with a more modern-day mindset and culture. However, it was not foreign to a first-century Jewish person who had an ancient near eastern mindset and Hebrew cultural context. What may be strange to some people and cultures in the twenty-first century not only is normal to a first century Jew living in Israel but also was packed full of “OH WOW” moments for those at the cross that day.

What a first-century Jewish person might have been thinking about when they heard Jesus saying those fourth magnificent words from the cross that were overflowing from His heart because they had been sown into His heart were more than what we first realize. We don’t realize that often when first century Jewish Rabbi’s would quote a line from a Psalm, such as Jesus does here on the cross when he quotes Psalm 22:1:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22:1

Although he may only be quoting the first line of the song, a first century Rabbi would have the whole Psalm in mind. Thus, what may only look like Jesus crying out to His Father that He is abandoning Him in his time of need, Jesus likely had a bigger picture in mind. He knew another lyric to the song in His heart that did not get sung out loud, but that was in His heart, nonetheless. Rabbis in Jesus’ day didn’t always say the whole Psalm. They often only would sing the first verse even when they had the whole song in mind.

To be clear, Jesus does not explicitly tell us what He is thinking in this moment on the cross. However, it is reasonable to believe Jesus absolutely felt abandoned in that moment. He was being honest in that moment. He didn’t say everything was fine. The words of the song not only overflowed out of His heart and mouth but also, they resonated with his emotions. Regardless, He didn’t only have verse one from Psalm 22 sown into His heart.

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He had the whole song in His heart and mind. And there are things in this Psalm that echo what we read in the Matthew 27 passage that we see unfolding at the cross when Jesus is being crucified. It’s listening to verse one of the Psalm in light of the whole Psalm that makes the fourth words from the cross so utterly magnificent.

Jesus echoes this Psalm, written by David when he was going through a time of suffering in his life, because this was the song people sang when they were suffering in that day. Look at some of these things in Psalm 22 that connect back with the cross scene beyond verse 1.

“All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
“He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” Psalm 22:7-8

When it says in verse 16…

“For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Psalm 22:16-18

Look how these last verses end with such hope, victory and perspective about what is coming at the end of the suffering. It has the rest of the story that Jesus, His contemporaries and all in that day who would have gone through tough, painful and suffering times would have been singing and holding on to what was sown into their hearts at young ages.

“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.” Psalm 22:27-31

Don’t miss that “OH WOW” moment at the end of verse 31: “that HE HAS DONE IT.” Another way to say those final words: IT IS FINISHED! That is the sixth word from the cross we will look at in the coming weeks.

When Jesus cried out from the cross the first line from Psalm 22, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me,” He had the whole Psalm planted in His soul. We hear the first lyric, but He knows that there is more to that song. In the end, Jesus is the suffering servant who is fulfilling everything the Scriptures said would happen. As a twenty-first century reader, we likely do not see all that is going on like a first-century Jewish person would have understood.

Matthew wrote this gospel primarily with a Jewish audience in mind. And the things Matthew includes in his gospel account of the crucifixion would have connected on a cultural level with his first-century Jewish audience.
Why?

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Because they had the Old Testament seeds sown into their souls as well. Thus, when the religious leaders of the day are standing around the cross watching this unfold and listening to what Jesus says, they see prophecy unfold right before their eyes.

For example, when Jesus says the fourth words:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22:1

As Jewish people who knew that Psalm and had it sown into their hearts, too, they would have been connecting with those other lyrics in the song. They would have linked the words that talk about the mocking and letting God deliver Him and the language about the pierced hands and feet and the dividing His garments by casting lots that we just read above. The Jewish religious leaders of the day around the cross would have been connecting the dots and viewing it all through the lens of prophecy.

And in Matthew 27:45 when it says:
“Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” Matthew 27:45

In the first century, they counted time from the hour the sun came up until it went down. Thus, the sixth hour until the ninth hour would translate from noon to 3 pm. Therefore, just after lunch when the sky goes dark and about 3 pm when Jesus starts overflowing on the cross with the words from Psalm 22, they would have looked around and not just seen the dark skies, they also would have seen the words of the prophets coming true.

In the Old Testament, when God brings darkness over the land, it is a sign of judgment. Because the Old Testament would have been sown into these Jewish people’s hearts watching this cross event unfold when the sky turns black, what begins to rise in their hearts and minds are passages like Exodus 10 and Amos 8 where it says:

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days.” Exodus 10:21-22

Judgment is being personified by the darkness over the land. Notice similar language in Amos 8:

“And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.” Amos 8:9-10

The first-century Jewish person sees things happening in this account that twenty-first-century people may not notice. We often don’t get past: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” However, Jesus has the whole song in mind because that is what has been sown into His heart throughout the years.

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The fourth word from the cross is a magnificent word with a magnificent meaning for each of us even though we are not first century Jews. It is magnificent because we, too, are sowing things into the hearts of people all around us each day.

What are you sowing into the hearts of your family?

Dad, what words are you sowing into the hearts of your kids that will come out overflowing when they go through seasons of suffering?

Wife, what words are you sowing into your husband when he loses his job and comes home to face you and his family? What words will overflow that you have been sowing into his heart?

Students, what words are you sowing into your parent’s lives? Do they know how you feel? Do they know how you appreciate them putting a roof over your head and clothes on your back and food in your belly or have you been sowing other words that tear them down?

Grandparents, are you sowing words of encouragement and wisdom into your kids and grandkids or are you sowing words that remind them that they are not doing life how you did it when you were there age?

Adults with aging parents, are you sowing words of appreciation, confidence, and love into your parents that allow them to sing the whole song of Psalm 22, or are you giving them just cause only to sing verse 1 because in reality, they do feel forsaken by their families?

Parents, do your kids have seeds sown into their hearts that remind them that whether or not they start on the team, make the team, get a hit, score a goal, make an error, get first chair, have a girlfriend, lots of friends or no friends, whether they are short or tall, skinny or fluffy, great skin or not so great skin, smart in school or not a straight-A student, no matter what: you love them for free? Do they know in their hearts that they don’t have to do the dance for you to get the hug from you? Do they know that and are you sowing those seeds into their lives on a day in and day out basis so that when the painful times of childhood and puberty hits and their little souls get flooded, what rises from the depths are the truths about how you see them and how much you love them? That may not make it all better, but it gives them hope that leads to a future.

There is never a greater time than today to begin sowing seeds of truth, love and God’s word into the souls of your kids, your marriages, and your own lives. Jesus did that. And when His soul was flooded on the cross with the wrath of God, the song of Psalm 22 overflowed from Him. That overflow led to your life and my life being rescued from sin, death, Satan and hell. Those are words worth sharing and sowing into the heart and life of other people. Who will you share these words of hope with this week?

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45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour.46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” 47 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48 Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. 49 But the rest of them said, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.”

Matthew 27:45-49, John 11:17-21, 30-37, Psalm 22:1, Psalm 22:7-8, Psalm 22:16-18,

Psalm 22 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
 Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.
O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; And by night, but I have no rest. Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; They trusted and You delivered them.
To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not [f]disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, [i]Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him;
Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”

Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts. 10 Upon You I was cast from [j]birth;
You have been my God from my mother’s womb.

11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help.
12 Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. 13 They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death.
16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
They pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me;
18 They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.19 But You, O Lord, be not far off; O You my help, hasten to my assistance. 20 Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog. 21 Save me from the lion’s mouth; From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me.

22 I will tell of Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. 23 You who fear the Lord, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel.
24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.

25 From You comes my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. 26 The afflicted will eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. 28 For the kingdom is the Lord’s And He rules over the nations.
29 All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship, All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep his soul alive. 30 Posterity will serve Him; It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation. 31 They will come and will declare His righteousness To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.