16

Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.

But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.

O my soul, thou hast said unto the LORD, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee;

Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust.

When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.

O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!

My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.

Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.

O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.

Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.

My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.

He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.

His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.

I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.

God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.

He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.

And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.

But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company.

Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?

But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.

I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul"s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.

Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?

I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.

And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries" art: and they made a very great burning for him.

And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.

And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.

And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.