Pay attention and listen to my message! ¹  Be attentive and listen to what I have to say! ² 

You complacent ¹  women, get up and listen to me! You carefree ²  daughters, pay attention to what I say!

“I thought, ¹  ‘In the middle of my life ²  I must walk through the gates of Sheol, I am deprived ³  of the rest of my years.’

So I say: “Don’t look at me! ¹  I am weeping bitterly. Don’t try ²  to console me concerning the destruction of my defenseless people.” ³ 

Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ¹  In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

“I thought, ‘I will no longer see the Lord ¹  in the land of the living, I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world. ² 

I have not spoken in secret, in some hidden place. ¹  I did not tell Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain!’ ²  I am the Lord, the one who speaks honestly, who makes reliable announcements. ³ 

But I thought, ¹  “I have worked in vain; I have expended my energy for absolutely nothing.” ²  But the Lord will vindicate me; my God will reward me. ³ 

“I made myself available to those who did not ask for me; ¹  I appeared to those who did not look for me. ²  I said, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’ to a nation that did not invoke ³  my name.