Psalm 7–12

PSALM 7

A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush a Benjaminite.

¹O Lord my God, in thee do I take refuge;

save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,

²lest like a lion they rend me,

dragging me away, with none to rescue.

³O Lord my God, if I have done this,

if there is wrong in my hands,

⁴if I have requited my friend with evil

or plundered my enemy without cause,

⁵let the enemy pursue me and overtake me,

and let him trample my life to the ground,

and lay my soul in the dust. Selah

⁶Arise, O Lord, in thy anger,

lift thyself up against the fury of my enemies;

awake, O my God;^b thou hast appointed a judgment.

⁷Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about thee;

and over it take thy seat^c on high.

⁸The Lord judges the peoples;

judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness

and according to the integrity that is in me.

⁹O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,

but establish thou the righteous,

thou who triest the minds and hearts,

thou righteous God.

¹⁰My shield is with God,

who saves the upright in heart.

¹¹God is a righteous judge,

and a God who has indignation every day.

¹²If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;

he has bent and strung his bow;

¹³he has prepared his deadly weapons,

making his arrows fiery shafts.

¹⁴Behold, the wicked man conceives evil,

and is pregnant with mischief,

and brings forth lies.

¹⁵He makes a pit, digging it out,

and falls into the hole which he has made.

¹⁶His mischief returns upon his own head,

and on his own pate his violence descends.

¹⁷I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,

and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

PSALM 8

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

¹O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is thy name in all the earth!

Thou whose glory above the heavens is chanted

²by the mouth of babes and infants,

thou hast founded a bulwark because of thy foes,

to still the enemy and the avenger.

³When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,

the moon and the stars which thou hast established;

⁴what is man that thou art mindful of him,

and the son of man that thou dost care for him?

⁵Yet thou hast made him little less than God,

and dost crown him with glory and honor.

⁶Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands;

thou hast put all things under his feet,

⁷all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

⁸the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the sea.

⁹O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is thy name in all the earth!

PSALM 9

To the choirmaster: according to Muth-labben. A Psalm of David.

¹I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will tell of all thy wonderful deeds.

²I will be glad and exult in thee,

I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High.

³When my enemies turned back,

they stumbled and perished before thee.

⁴For thou hast maintained my just cause;

thou hast sat on the throne giving righteous judgment.

⁵Thou hast rebuked the nations, thou hast destroyed the wicked;

thou hast blotted out their name for ever and ever.

⁶The enemy have vanished in everlasting ruins;

their cities thou hast rooted out;

the very memory of them has perished.

⁷But the Lord sits enthroned for ever,

he has established his throne for judgment;

⁸and he judges the world with righteousness,

he judges the peoples with equity.

⁹The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,

a stronghold in times of trouble.

¹⁰And those who know thy name put their trust in thee,

for thou, O Lord, hast not forsaken those who seek thee.

¹¹Sing praises to the Lord, who dwells in Zion!

Tell among the peoples his deeds!

¹²For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;

he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.

¹³Be gracious to me, O Lord!

Behold what I suffer from those who hate me,

O thou who liftest me up from the gates of death,

¹⁴that I may recount all thy praises,

that in the gates of the daughter of Zion

I may rejoice in thy deliverance.

¹⁵The nations have sunk in the pit which they made;

in the net which they hid has their own foot been caught.

¹⁶The Lord has made himself known, he has executed judgment;

the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah

¹⁷The wicked shall depart to Sheol,

all the nations that forget God.

¹⁸For the needy shall not always be forgotten,

and the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever.

¹⁹Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail;

let the nations be judged before thee!

²⁰Put them in fear, O Lord!

Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah

PSALM 10

¹Why dost thou stand afar off, O Lord?

Why dost thou hide thyself in times of trouble?

²In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;

let them be caught in the schemes which they have devised.

³For the wicked boasts of the desires of his heart,

and the man greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.

⁴In the pride of his countenance the wicked does not seek him;

all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”

⁵His ways prosper at all times;

thy judgments are on high, out of his sight;

as for all his foes, he puffs at them.

⁶He thinks in his heart, “I shall not be moved;

throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”

⁷His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;

under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.

⁸He sits in ambush in the villages;

in hiding places he murders the innocent.

His eyes stealthily watch for the hapless,

⁹he lurks in secret like a lion in his covert;

he lurks that he may seize the poor,

he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.

¹⁰The hapless is crushed, sinks down,

and falls by his might.

¹¹He thinks in his heart, “God has forgotten,

he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

¹²Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thy hand;

forget not the afflicted.

¹³Why does the wicked renounce God,

and say in his heart, “Thou wilt not call to account”?

¹⁴Thou dost see; yea, thou dost note trouble and vexation,

that thou mayest take it into thy hands;

the hapless commits himself to thee;

thou hast been the helper of the fatherless.

¹⁵Break thou the arm of the wicked and evildoer;

seek out his wickedness till thou find none.

¹⁶The Lord is king for ever and ever;

the nations shall perish from his land.

¹⁷O Lord, thou wilt hear the desire of the meek;

thou wilt strengthen their heart, thou wilt incline thy ear

¹⁸to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,

so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

PSALM 11

To the choirmaster. Of David.

¹In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to me,

“Flee like a bird to the mountains;

²for lo, the wicked bend the bow,

they have fitted their arrow to the string,

to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;

³if the foundations are destroyed,

what can the righteous do”?

⁴The Lord is in his holy temple,

the Lord’s throne is in heaven;

his eyes behold, his eyelids test, the children of men.

⁵The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked,

and his soul hates him that loves violence.

⁶On the wicked he will rain coals of fire and brimstone;

a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.

⁷For the Lord is righteous, he loves righteous deeds;

the upright shall behold his face.

PSALM 12

To the choirmaster: according to The Sheminith. A Psalm of David.

¹Help, Lord; for there is no longer any that is godly;

for the faithful have vanished from among the sons of men.

²Every one utters lies to his neighbor;

with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

³May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,

the tongue that makes great boasts,

⁴those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,

our lips are with us; who is our master?”

⁵“Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan,

I will now arise,” says the Lord;

“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”

⁶The promises of the Lord are promises that are pure,

silver refined in a furnace on the ground,

purified seven times.

⁷Do thou, O Lord, protect us,

guard us ever from this generation.

⁸On every side the wicked prowl,

as vileness is exalted among the sons of men.