To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

¹Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;

²For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.

³They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.

⁴For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.

⁵And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

⁶Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.

⁷When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.

⁸Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

⁹Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

¹⁰Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

¹¹Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.

¹²Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.

¹³Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

¹⁴Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

¹⁵Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

¹⁶Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.

¹⁷As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.

¹⁸As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.

¹⁹Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.

²⁰Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul.

²¹But do thou for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.

²²For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

²³I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.

²⁴My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.

²⁵I became also a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they shaked their heads.

²⁶Help me, O LORD my God: O save me according to thy mercy:

²⁷That they may know that this is thy hand; that thou, LORD, hast done it.

²⁸Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice.

²⁹Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.

³⁰I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.

³¹For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.