I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within.
Parallel translations
- WEB For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
- KJV For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
- BSB For my life is consumed with grief and my years with groaning; my iniquity has drained my strength, and my bones are wasting away.
- NKJV For my life is spent with grief, And my years with sighing; My strength fails because of my iniquity, And my bones waste away.
- NASB For my life is spent with sorrow And my years with sighing; My strength has failed because of my guilt, And my body has wasted away.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David's life is consumed with sorrow and sighing, his strength and bones failing because of his affliction. It deepens the lament over his wasting condition.
Overview
Grief has drained David's vitality, and he even connects his suffering with his own sin. The verse honestly acknowledges both outward affliction and inner guilt. It reminds us that the weight of sin and sorrow finds its only remedy in the God who forgives and restores.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 38:3There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin.
- Ps 32:3–4When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
- Ps 88:15I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted.
- Ps 78:33Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
- Rom 9:2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.
- Ps 39:11When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, You consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.” Selah.
- Job 3:24For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
- Ps 13:2How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
- Ps 102:3–28For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.
- Ps 71:9Don’t reject me in my old age. Don’t forsake me when my strength fails.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 31:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.