- Save me, O God, for the waters have come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. I have come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying. My throat is dried. My eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restored that which I took not away. O God, you know my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from you.
- Let not them that wait on you, O Lord God of Hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that seek you be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because for your sake I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren and a foreigner unto my mother’s children. For the zeal of your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me. When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. I made sackcloth also my garment, and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me, and I was the song of the drunkards.
- But as for me, my prayer is unto you, O Lord, in an acceptable time. O God, in the multitude of your mercy, hear me in the truth of your salvation. Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink. Let me be delivered from them that hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. Hear me, O Lord, for your loving kindness is good. Turn unto me according to the multitude of your tender mercies, and hide not your face from your servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me speedily. Draw near unto my soul and redeem it. Deliver me because of my enemies. You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before you. Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
- Let their table become a snare before them. And that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened that they see not and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out your indignation upon them and let your wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate and let none dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom you have smitten, and they talk to the grief of those whom you have wounded. Add iniquity unto their iniquity and let them not come into your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous.
- But I am poor and sorrowful. Let your salvation, O God, set me up on high. I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hooves.
- The humble shall see this and be glad, and your heart shall live that seek God. For the Lord hears the poor and despises not his prisoners.
- Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and everything that moves therein. For God will save Zion and will build the cities of Judah that they may dwell there and have it in possession. The seed also of his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall dwell therein.
Psalm 69
To the chief musician upon Shoshannim, a psalm of David.