Psalms 141

Prayer for God’s Help in Maintaining Integrity

¹I call on you, O Yahweh; hasten to me.

Listen to my voice when I call to you.

²Let my prayer be set before you as incense,

the lifting up of my palms as the evening offering.

³Set a guard, O Yahweh, over my mouth;

keep watch over the door of my lips.

⁴Do not incline my heart to any evil thing,

to practice wicked deeds

with men who do iniquity;

and do not let me eat of their delicacies.

⁵Let a righteous one strike me in kindness,

and let him chasten me.

It is oil for my head; let not my head refuse.

For still my prayer is against their evil deeds.

⁶When their judges are thrown down the sides of a cliff,[#Or “are dropped into the hands of the Rock,” that is, Yahweh. The interpretation of vv. 6–7 is uncertain.]

then they will understand that my words were pleasant.

⁷As when one plows and breaks up the earth,

so our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

⁸But my eyes are toward you, O Yahweh, my Lord;[#Or “Because”]

I have taken refuge in you. Do not lay bare my soul.

⁹Protect me from the grasp of the trap they have laid for me,[#Literally “hand”]

and from the snares of evildoers.

¹⁰Let the wicked fall into their nets,[#Hebrew “his”]

while I escape altogether.