Psalm 143 has two sentences for a state that is hard to put a name to: still getting through the day, mostly, with nothing left over at the end of it. "My spirit is overwhelmed within me," the speaker says. "My heart within me is desolate." He says it in a prayer, to God, and the psalm lets both words stand without explaining them away or moving quickly to a happier line.
If you have been looking for a way to describe how you are, those two verses may already have the words.
The short version
The passage
Psalm 143:3-4, in the World English Bible and the King James, with the verses around it.
Who is speaking
David, pursued and pressed down, praying. The psalm keeps asking after these lines and does not tie things up.
What to do with it
Read the two verses slowly, then the seven they belong to. The psalm's own words can serve as a prayer when you have none.
When to see a doctor
Cleveland Clinic notes that what feels like burnout can be depression or a physical cause such as thyroid disease, which is worth ruling out.
The passage
For the enemy pursues my soul. He has struck my life down to the ground. He has made me live in dark places, as those who have been long dead. Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate.
Psalm 143:3-4, in the World English Bible. In the King James:
For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my heart within me is desolate.
The second verse names the state. The first explains it. Something has been pressing on this man for long enough that he describes himself as living in the dark, and the word "therefore" connects the two: this is what that pressure has done to him. He is not describing a bad afternoon. He is describing a long stretch and what it has cost.
What to do with it
Take the two verses once, slowly, and let them describe the day before you ask anything of them. The psalm lets you come to it in whatever mood you are in, however flat. It gives the state a name and says it out loud to God, which is a thing a person can do while still exhausted.
Then read verses 1 to 7 together, in the setting of Psalm 143:3-4. The verses after the two above are the speaker's next moves, and none of them is a recovery. He remembers "the days of old". He spreads out his hands. He says his soul thirsts "like a parched land". And in verse 7 he says it again, more plainly: "Hurry to answer me, Yahweh. My spirit fails."
If a question helps, Bible Nudge pairs this passage with a plain one: what has been taking everything you have? It does not need an answer tonight. Sometimes naming the thing is the whole of what a reading can do.
The part of the day when there is finally time to notice how empty the tank is.
Who is speaking, and what is around him
The psalm is headed "A Psalm by David", and it is addressed to God throughout. It opens with a request: "Hear my prayer, Yahweh. Listen to my petitions. In your faithfulness and righteousness, relieve me." The next verse asks God not to enter into judgment with "your servant", which tells you the speaker is not approaching from a position of strength or confidence.
Then come the two verses above, and the reason for them is outward. An enemy is pursuing him. His life has been struck "down to the ground". Most people reading this are not being hunted by anyone, so the situations are different. What carries across is the effect he describes. Whatever has been wearing you down, whether it is a job, somebody you are caring for, a long illness in the family or simply too many months without a break, the psalm's words for the result are overwhelmed and desolate, and they fit a life that has kept going under pressure.
What makes the psalm worth sitting with is where it goes next. It does not conclude at verse 4. It keeps asking. Near the end the speaker is still praying, "Revive me, Yahweh, for your name’s sake," which is the request of somebody who has not been revived yet. The psalm holds the exhaustion and the asking in the same prayer, and it never suggests that feeling this empty means the prayer has failed.
Why this psalm and not the verses usually offered
Three other passages came close here. Each is a real passage about weariness, and the reasons for choosing differently are short.
Isaiah 40:31 promises that those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength, run and not be weary. It is a promise about strength returning, and it speaks to somebody who is ready to hear about the other side. On a day with nothing left, it can read as a description of somebody else.
Psalm 6:6-7 describes weariness and a bed flooded with tears, and it is close. Its setting is grief and adversaries, though, and the tiredness it describes belongs to mourning, and the site meets mourning with a different passage.
Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened," is the passage this site gives for anxiety, where its invitation to people carrying too much has room to be read on its own terms.
Psalm 143 was chosen because it stays with the exhaustion and names it, in the first person, as somebody praying.
It rarely arrives all at once, which is part of why it is hard to name.
What doctors say mental exhaustion is, and is not
"Mental exhaustion" is how people describe themselves, and it is not a diagnosis. The closest clinical word is burnout, although the World Health Organization keeps that word for the workplace and does not classify it as a medical condition. The definitions are useful mainly because they say what the state includes. Cleveland Clinic quotes the APA Dictionary's definition: "physical, emotional or mental exhaustion, accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance and negative attitudes toward oneself and others". It adds that burnout "doesn't happen all at once" and builds over long periods of stress without enough time to recover.
People describe it more concretely than the definitions do. One person on Reddit's r/careerguidance wrote about "a deep mental exhaustion that doesn't really disappear even if you sleep more or take time off", and that "Simple work feels heavier than it should" (r/careerguidance, posted March 2026). Another, on r/mentalhealth, listed "Difficulty starting tasks even when I want to do them" and "everything seems bland or empty" (r/mentalhealth, posted July 2026).
There is a practical reason not to settle on a label by yourself. Cleveland Clinic notes that what looks like burnout can be depression, burnout and depression together, or a physical cause such as thyroid disease or severe iron deficiency, which is why it is worth seeing a doctor about it before deciding what it is.
If the exhaustion has built up from years of a particular job, the page on work burnout is a closer fit, with a passage about the arrangement a person works inside.
One person in this state wrote about how hard it was to keep being told how strong they were. The post on Reddit's r/mentalhealth was titled with that complaint, and its writer said: "I'm mentally exhausted but I get up everyday and do what I have to do and pretend like I'm okay" (r/mentalhealth, posted March 2022). Anybody trying to encourage a person in this state may want to know that before they reach for the compliment.
If you want words for a prayer
A prayer for mental exhaustion is one of the things people look for, and Psalm 143 is already one. You can pray its first verse as it stands, "Hear my prayer, Yahweh. Listen to my petitions," and its seventh when that is closer to the truth: "Hurry to answer me, Yahweh. My spirit fails." Nothing in the psalm requires you to add anything more cheerful to it before it counts as a prayer.
Where to go next
Everything Bible Nudge holds on this experience is gathered under Emotional exhaustion, including the other passages that were weighed.
If a topic list is more than you can face right now, tell Bible Nudge in a sentence what the day has been like, and it will suggest a single passage to start with. Find a passage.
If this has gone past tired into not wanting to be here, please talk to somebody tonight. In the United States, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which says you do not have to be suicidal to contact it. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans answers on 116 123, and in Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. From anywhere else, Find A Helpline will show the services in your country.
Words that come up here
Tap a term to see what it means.
Lament. A prayer that brings suffering to God and asks for help, without making the suffering sound smaller than it is. Psalm 143 is one.