Psalm 109
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.
1 Do not remain silent,
O God of my praise!
2 For the mouth of the wicked and deceitful
are opened against me;
they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They encircled me with words of hatred
and fought against me without cause.
4 In return for my love they are my adversaries,
but I give myself to prayer.
5 They have rewarded me evil for good
and hatred for my love.
6 Set a wicked man against him,
and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned,
and let his prayer be reckoned as sin.
8 Let his days be few,
and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be wandering beggars;
let them seek their bread far from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has;
let the strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him,
neither let there be any to pity his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off,
and in the generation following let his name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually,
that the Lord may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 For he did not remember to show kindness,
but pursued the poor and needy and broken-hearted
to their death.
17 As he loved cursing,
so let it come over him;
as he did not delight in blessing,
so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing like a garment,
so let it soak into him like water,
and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment that covers him,
and a belt that he continually wears.
20 Let this be the reward of my adversaries from the Lord,
and of those who speak evil against my soul.
21 But You, O God my Lord,
work on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your mercy is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like a shadow in the evening;
I am tossed as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting,
and my body is thin with no fat.
25 I am a reproach to my accusers;
when they look upon me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God!
Save me according to Your mercy,
27 that they may know that this is by Your hand,
that You, O Lord, have done it.
28 Let them curse, but You will bless;
when they arise, let them be ashamed,
but let Your servant rejoice.
29 Let my adversaries be clothed with shame,
and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace like a cloak.
30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth;
indeed, I will praise Him among the multitude.
31 For He stands at the right hand of the poor,
to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.
