The Qumran Community · a new plain-English translation from the original language
for a day of [indignation], burning anger [...] [an abundance of]
your forgivenesses, and the multitude of [your mercies] [...] in
and by my knowledge of these [I was comforted] by your truth [...]
according to your will, and in your hand is the judgment of them all [...]
I thank you, O Lord, for you did not abandon me while I sojourned among a foreign people [...] according to my guilt
you judged me [...] and did not abandon me to the devices of my inclination [...] and you helped me from the pit of my life and gave to me [...] [an escape] in the midst of
lionesses appointed for the sons of guilt, lions that crush the bones of the mighty and drink the blood of the valiant [...] and you set me [...]
in the dwelling of many fishermen who spread the net upon the face of the waters, and of hunters for the sons of iniquity [...] and there for judgment
you established me [...] and a foundation of truth you made firm in my heart [...] and from this a covenant for those who seek it [...] and you shut the mouth of young lions who
are like a sword, their teeth, and their fangs like a sharp spear [...] the venom of serpents is all their schemes [...] to tear apart they gather themselves, and not
did they open their mouth against me [...] for you, my God, hid me from the sons of man, and your law you concealed [within me] until the time
of the revealing of your salvation to me [...] for in the distress of my soul you did not abandon me, and you heard my cry in the bitterness of my soul [...]
and you took note of my grief, you knew it in my sighing [...] and you delivered the soul of the poor one from the dwelling of lions who sharpened their tongue like a sword [...]
from... and you, my God, shut in behind their tongue, lest they tear apart the soul of the poor and needy one [...] and you made their tongue
like a sword not drawn from its sheath, so that [it might not cut off] the soul of your servant [...] and so that you might show your might through me before the sons of man, you dealt wondrously
with the poor one [...] and you brought him into [the crucible] like gold in the works of fire, and like silver refined in the furnace of smelters, to purify sevenfold [...]
and the wicked of the peoples hastened against me in their distresses, and all the day they crush my soul [...]
but you, my God, turn my soul from storm to calm, and the soul of the poor one you delivered like [a bird] [from] [a snare], and like prey from the traps of
lions [...]
I thank you, blessed are you, O Lord, for you did not abandon the orphan, nor did you despise the needy one [...] for your might is [without] [end], and your glory
is without measure [...] and the mighty ones of wonder are your ministers [...] and with the poor, at the sweepings of [your feet], [together] with those who hasten in
righteousness, to raise up from the tumult together all who groan, the poor of mercy [...] and I have become upon... [...] my adversary in dispute
and contentions to my companion, jealousy and anger to those who entered my covenant, and murmuring and complaint to all who assembled with me [...] [even] [those who eat] my bread
have lifted up their heel against me [...] and all who are joined to my council mock me with lips of iniquity [...] and the men of my council are rebellious
and murmur all around [...] and concerning the mystery you hid within me they go about slandering to the sons of destruction [...] and because you [showed your might] through me, and so that
their guilt might be exposed, you hid the spring of understanding and the foundation of truth [...] and they devise the destruction of their heart, and they have opened [words] of Belial
a tongue of falsehood, like the venom of serpents bursting forth toward the extremities [...] and like creeping things of the dust they aim to [tear apart] with the [poison] of vipers
for which there is no charm [...] and it became an incurable pain and a malignant affliction in the inward parts of your servant, to make [the spirit] stumble and to consume
strength, so that no stand could be maintained [...] and they overtook me in straits with no escape, and not by separation from families [...] and they roar
[...] with the lyre is my dispute, and with music together is their complaint, amid crashing and devastation [...] burning terror seized me, and pangs like the pangs of one
in labor [...] and my heart roared within me [...] I clothed myself in gloom, and my tongue cleaves to my palate [...] for they surrounded me with the destruction of their heart, and their design
appeared to me as bitterness [...] and the light of my face was darkened to gloom, and my splendor was turned to corruption [...] and you, my God
opened a wide space in my heart, but they have turned it again into distress, and they have hedged me about with deep darkness [...] and I eat the bread of my sighing
and my drink is with tears without end [...] for my eyes grow dim from vexation, and my soul in the bitterness of the day [...] sighing and grief
surround me, and shame is upon my face [...] and my bread has turned to strife for me, and my drink to a master of contention [...] and it enters into my bones
to make the spirit stumble and to consume strength [...] for the mysteries of transgression change the works of God through their guilt [...] for I was bound with cords
that cannot be torn apart, and fetters that cannot be broken [...] and a wall of strength [around me], and bars of iron, and doors of [bronze] [with] [no]
[opening] [...] my prison; with the deep I was reckoned, to nothingness [...]
[and] [the torrents of] Belial engulfed my soul, with no [escape] [...]