A psalm of David
35
📚✭✭Plead my cause, O LORD,with those who strive with me.
Fight against those who
fight against me.
2 📚Take hold of shield
and buckler✭,
and stand up for my help.
3 📚Draw out the spear also,
and bar the way to
those who persecute me.
Say to my soul, “I am
your salvation”.
4 📚Let those who seek after
my life be disgraced and
put to shame.
Let those who plot
to harm me be turned back
and brought to confusion.
5 📚✭Let them be like chaff
before the wind,
and let the angel of the LORD
drive them away.
6 📚Let their way be dark
and slippery,
and let the angel of the LORD
pursue them.
7 📚✭For without cause
they have hidden their
net for me
in a pit which,
without cause,
they dug for my soul.
8 📚✭Let destruction come
on him unexpectedly,
and let his net,
which he hid, catch him.
Let him fall into that
very destruction.
9 📚✭And my soul will be joyful
in the LORD;
it will rejoice in his salvation.
10 📚All my bones will say,
“LORD, who is like you
who delivers the poor
from the one
who is too strong for him;
yes, the poor and the needy
from the one who
plunders him?”
11 📚False witnesses rise up.
They question me about things
that I do not know.
12 📚They repay me evil for good
to bring loss
to my soul.
13 📚✭But as for me,
when they were sick,
my clothing became
sackcloth.
I humbled my soul
with fasting;
and my prayer returned
into my own bosom.
14 📚I went about as though
he was my friend
or brother.
I bowed down sorrowfully,
like one who mourns
for his mother.
15 📚But in my adversity
they rejoiced,
and gathered together.
Yes, attackers gathered
together against me,
and I did not know it.
They tore me,
and did not stop;
16 📚With ungodly mockers
at feasts,
they gnashed their teeth
at me.
17 📚Lord, how long will you
look on?
Rescue my soul from their
attempts to destroy,
my precious life from the lions.
18 📚I will give you thanks✭ in the great congregation.
I will praise you among many people.
19 📚✭Do not let those who are my enemies
wrongfully rejoice over me,
or let those who hate me without cause
wink with the eye.
20 📚For they do not speak peace,
but devise deceitful matters against
those who are quiet in the land.
21 📚Yes, they opened their mouth wide against
me, and said,
“Aha! Aha! Our eyes have seen you”.
22 📚You have seen this, O LORD.
Do not keep silent.
O Lord, do not be far from me.
23 📚Stir yourself up, and awake for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord.
24 📚Vindicate me, O LORD my God,
in accordance with your righteousness,
and do not let them rejoice over me.
25 📚Do not let them say in their hearts,
“Ah, so we would have it!”
Do not let them say, “We have swallowed
him up!”
26 📚Let those who rejoice at my distress be
ashamed and altogether be brought
to confusion.
Let them be clothed with shame and
dishonour who exalt themselves
against me.
27 📚✭Let those who favour my righteous cause
shout for joy and be glad.
Yes, let them say continually,
“May the LORD, who has pleasure in the
prosperity of his servant, be exalted”.
28 📚And my tongue will speak of your
righteousness and of your praise
all the day long.