Psalm 109 - Modern English Version

For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.

¹ Do not be silent, O God of my praise!

² For the mouth of the wicked and the deceitful have they opened against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.

³ They have also encircled me with words of hatred and fought against me without cause.

⁴ In return for my love they are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer.

⁵ So they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

⁶ Appoint a wicked man against him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand.

⁷ When he is judged, let him be condemned, and let his prayer be reckoned as sin.

⁸ Let his days be few, and let another take his office.

⁹ Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

¹⁰ Let his children wander continuously and beg; let them seek their bread far from their desolate homes.

¹¹ Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.

¹² Let there be none to extend mercy to him, nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.

¹³ Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let his name be blotted out.

¹⁴ Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

¹⁵ Let them be before the Lord continually, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

¹⁶ For he did not remember to show kindness, but persecuted the poor and needy and broken-hearted to slay them.

¹⁷ He loved cursing; so let it come on him; He did not delight in blessing; so let it be far from him.

¹⁸ He clothed himself with cursing as his garment; so let it enter his body like water, and like oil into his bones.

¹⁹ Let it be to him like a garment with which he covers himself, and like a belt with which he continually girds himself.

²⁰ Let this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord, and of those who speak evil against my soul.

²¹ But You, O  God, the Lord, work on my behalf for Your name’s sake; because Your mercy is good, deliver me.

²² For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

²³ I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens; I am shaken off like a locust.

²⁴ My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh has grown gaunt with no fatness.

²⁵ I also have become a reproach to them; when they look at me, they shake their heads.

²⁶ Help me, O  Lord my God! Save me according to Your mercy,

²⁷ that they may know that this is Your hand, that You, O  Lord, have done it.

²⁸ Let them curse, but You will bless; when they arise, let them be ashamed, but let Your servant rejoice.

²⁹ Let my accusers be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own shame as with a mantle.

³⁰ I will greatly give thanks to the Lord with my mouth; I will praise Him among the multitude.

³¹ For He stands at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those who condemn his soul.