¹⁵ Wretched and close to death from my youth up,
    I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.^[a](A)

⁴ The Lord God has given me
    a trained tongue,^[a]
that I may know how to sustain
    the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens,
    wakens my ear
    to listen as those who are taught.^(A)

⁸ Their widows became more numerous
    than the sand of the seas;
I have brought against the mothers of youths
    a destroyer at noonday;
I have made anguish and terror
    fall upon her suddenly.