PSALM 12

God, a Helper against the Treacherous.

For the choir director; †upon an eight-stringed lyre. A Psalm of David.

1 Help, Lord, for athe godly man ceases to be,

For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.

2 They aspeak 1falsehood to one another;

With bflattering 2lips and with a double heart they speak.

3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,

The tongue that aspeaks great things;

4 Who ahave said, “With our tongue we will prevail;

Our lips are 1our own; who is lord over us?”

5 “Because of the adevastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy,

Now bI will arise,” says the Lord; “I will cset him in the safety for which he longs.”

6 The awords of the Lord are pure words;

As silver btried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.

7 You, O Lord, will keep them;

You will apreserve him from this generation forever.

8 The awicked strut about on every side

When 1bvileness is exalted among the sons of men.