✧1For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Lilies.” By David. Save me, God, for the waters have come up to my neck! ✧2I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. ✧3I am weary with my crying. My throat is dry. My eyes fail looking for my God. ✧4Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. Those who want to cut me off, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. I have to restore what I didn’t take away. ✧5God, you know my foolishness. My sins aren’t hidden from you. ✧6Don’t let those who wait for you be shamed through me, Lord GOD of Armies. Don’t let those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, God of Israel. ✧7Because for your sake, I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face. ✧8I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s children.
World English Bible (WEB). World English Bible (Protestant edition). Public domain.
✧9For the zeal of your house consumes me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
✧10When I wept and I fasted, that was to my reproach.
✧11When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them.
✧12Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards.
✧13But as for me, my prayer is to you, LORD, in an acceptable time. God, in the abundance of your loving kindness, answer me in the truth of your salvation.
✧14Deliver me out of the mire, and don’t let me sink. Let me be delivered from those who hate me, and out of the deep waters.
✧15Don’t let the flood waters overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Don’t let the pit shut its mouth on me.
✧16Answer me, LORD, for your loving kindness is good. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me.
✧17Don’t hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Answer me speedily!
✧18Draw near to my soul and redeem it. Ransom me because of my enemies.
✧19You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before you.
✧20Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.
✧21They also gave me poison for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.
✧22Let their table before them become a snare. May it become a retribution and a trap.
✧23Let their eyes be darkened, so that they can’t see. Let their backs be continually bent.
✧24Pour out your indignation on them. Let the fierceness of your anger overtake them.
✧25Let their habitation be desolate. Let no one dwell in their tents.
✧26For they persecute him whom you have wounded. They tell of the sorrow of those whom you have hurt.
✧27Charge them with crime upon crime. Don’t let them come into your righteousness.
✧28Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous.
✧29But I am in pain and distress. Let your salvation, God, protect me.
✧30I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
✧31It will please the LORD better than an ox, or a bull that has horns and hoofs.
✧32The humble have seen it, and are glad. You who seek after God, let your heart live.
✧33For the LORD hears the needy, and doesn’t despise his captive people.
✧34Let heaven and earth praise him; the seas, and everything that moves therein!
✧35For God will save Zion, and build the cities of Judah. They shall settle there, and own it.
✧36The children also of his servants shall inherit it. Those who love his name shall dwell therein.