68
(69) For the end, a Psalm of David, for * alternate strains.
1 Save me, O God; for the waters have come in to my soul.
2 I am stuck fast in deep mire, and there is no standing: I am come in to the depths of the sea, and a storm has overwhelmed me.
3 I am weary of crying, my throat has become hoarse; my eyes have failed by my waiting on my God.
4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: my enemies that persecute me unrighteously are strengthened: then I † restored that which I took not away.
5 O God, you know my foolishness; and my transgressions are not hidden from you.
6 Let not them that wait on you, O Lord of hosts, be ashamed on my account: let not them that seek you, be ashamed on my account, O God of Israel.
7 For I have suffered reproach for your sake; shame has covered my face.
8 I became strange to my brethren, and a stranger to my mother's children.
9 ✡ For the zeal of your house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me.
10 And I bowed down my soul with fasting, and that was made my reproach.
11 And I put on sackcloth for my covering; and I became a proverb to them.
12 They that sit in the gate talked against me, and they that drank wine sang against me.
13 But I will cry to you, O Lord, in my prayer; O God, it is a propitious time: in the multitude of your mercy hear me, in the truth of your salvation.
14 Save me from the mire, that I stick not in it: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and from the deep waters.
15 Let not the waterflood drown me, nor let the deep swallow me up; neither let the well shut its mouth upon me.
16 Hear me, O Lord; for your mercy is good: according to the multitude of your compassions look upon me.
17 And turn not away your face from your ‡ servant; for I am afflicted: hear me speedily.
18 Draw near to my soul and redeem it: deliver me because of my enemies.
19 For you know my reproach, and my shame, and my confusion; all that afflict me are before you.
20 My soul has waited for reproach and misery; and I waited for one to grieve with me, but there was none; and for one to comfort me, but I found none.
21 They gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink vinegar for my thirst.
22 ✡ Let their table before them be for a snare, and for a recompense, and for a stumbling block.
23 Let their eyes be darkened that they should not see; and bow down their back continually.
24 Pour out your wrath upon them, and let the fury of your anger take hold on them.
25 ✡ Let their habitation be made desolate; and let there be no inhabitant in their tents:
26 Because they persecuted him whom you have struck; and they have added to the grief of my wounds.
27 Add iniquity to their iniquity; and let them not come into your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and let them not be written with the righteous.
29 I am poor and sorrowful; but the salvation of your countenance has helped me.
30 I will praise the name of my God with a song, I will magnify him with praise;
31 and this shall please God more than a young calf having horns and hoofs.
32 Let the poor see and rejoice; seek the Lord diligently, and you⌃ shall live.
33 For the Lord hears the poor, and does not set at nothing his fettered ones.
34 Let the heavens and the earth raise him, the sea, and all things moving in them.
35 For God will save Sion, and the cities of Judea shall be built; and men shall dwell there, and inherit it.
36 And the seed of his servants shall possess it, and they that love his name shall dwell therein.
* 68: See Ps 44. title. † 68:4 Or, paid for, or, made up for. ✡ 68:9 John 2:17; Rom 15:3 ‡ 68:17 Or, son. ✡ 68:22 Rom 11:9-10 ✡ 68:25 Acts 1:20