| [1]Save me, O God; for the waters have come in to my soul.
          [2]I am stuck fast in deep mire, and there is no standing: I am come in to the depths of the sea, and a storm has overwhelmed me.
          [3]I am weary of crying, my throat has become hoarse; mine eyes have failed by my waiting on my God.
          [4]They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: my enemies that persecute me unrighteously are strengthened: then I restored that which I took not away.
          [5]O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my transgressions are not hidden from thee.
          [6]Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord of hosts, be ashamed on my account: let not them that seek thee, be ashamed on my account, O God of Israel.
          [7]For I have suffered reproach for thy sake; shame has covered my face.
          [8]I became strange to my brethren, and a stranger to my mother's children.
          [9]For the zeal of thine house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.
          [10]And I bowed down my soul with fasting, and that was made my reproach.
          [11]And I put on sackcloth for my covering; and I became a proverb to them.
          [12]They that sit in the gate talked against me, and they that drank wine sang against me.
          [13]But I will cry to thee, O Lord, in my prayer; O God, it is a propitious time: in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.
          [14]Save me from the mire, that I stick not in it: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and from the deep waters.
          [15]Let not the waterflood drown me, nor let the deep swallow me up; neither let the well shut its mouth upon me.
          [16]Hear me, O Lord; for thy mercy is good: according to the multitude of thy compassions look upon me.
          [17]And turn not away thy face from thy servant; for I am afflicted: hear me speedily.
          [18]Draw nigh to my soul and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.
          [19]For thou knowest my reproach, and my shame, and my confusion; all that afflict me are before thee.
          [20]My soul has waited for reproach and misery; and I waited for one to grieve with me, but there was none; and for one to comfort me, but I found none.
          [21]They gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink vinegar for my thirst.
          [22]Let their table before them be for a snare, and for a recompense, and for a stumbling-block.
          [23]Let their eyes be darkened that they should not see; and bow down their back continually.
          [24]Pour out thy wrath upon them, and let the fury of thine anger take hold on them.
          [25]Let their habitation be made desolate; and let there be no inhabitant in their tents:
          [26]Because they persecuted him whom thou hast smitten; and they have added to the grief of my wounds.
          [27]Add iniquity to their iniquity; and let them not come into thy righteousness.
          [28]Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and let them not be written with the righteous.
          [29]I am poor and sorrowful; but the salvation of thy countenance has helped me.
          [30]I will praise the name of my God with a song, I will magnify him with praise;
          [31]and this shall please God more than a young calf having horns and hoofs.
          [32]Let the poor see and rejoice; seek the Lord diligently, and ye shall live.
          [33]For the Lord hears the poor, and does not set at nought his fettered ones.
          [34]Let the heavens and the earth raise him, the sea, and all things moving in them.
          [35]For God will save Sion, and the cities of Judea shall be built; and men shall dwell there, and inherit it.
          [36]And the seed of his servants shall possess it, and they that love his name shall dwell therein. |