¹Do not be silent,

O God of my praise!

²For the mouth of the wicked and the deceitful

have they opened against me;

they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.

³They have also encircled me with words of hatred

and fought against me without cause.

⁴In return for my love they are my accusers,[#Ps 38:20]

but I give myself to prayer.

⁵So they have rewarded me evil for good,

and hatred for my love.

⁶Appoint a wicked man against him,

and let an accuser stand at his right hand.

⁷When he is judged, let him be condemned,

and let his prayer be reckoned as sin.

⁸Let his days be few,[#Ps 55:23]

and let another take his office.

⁹Let his children be fatherless

and his wife a widow.

¹⁰Let his children wander continuously and beg;

let them seek their bread far from their desolate homes.

¹¹Let the creditor seize all that he has,

and let strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.

¹²Let there be none to extend mercy to him,

nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.

¹³Let his posterity be cut off,[#Job 18:19]

and in the generation following let his name be blotted out.

¹⁴Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord ,[#Ex 20:5]

and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

¹⁵Let them be before the Lord continually,

that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

¹⁶For he did not remember to show kindness,

but persecuted the poor and needy and broken-hearted

to slay them.

¹⁷He loved cursing;

so let it come on him;

He did not delight in blessing;

so let it be far from him.

¹⁸He clothed himself with cursing as his garment;[#Ps 73:6]

so let it enter his body like water,

and like oil into his bones.

¹⁹Let it be to him like a garment with which he covers himself,[#Ps 109:29]

and like a belt with which he continually girds himself.

²⁰Let this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord ,

and of those who speak evil against my soul.

²¹But You, O God , the Lord,

work on my behalf for Your name’s sake;

because Your mercy is good, deliver me.

²²For I am poor and needy,[#Ps 40:17; 86:1]

and my heart is wounded within me.

²³I am gone like a shadow when it lengthens;

I am shaken off like a locust.

²⁴My knees are weak through fasting,[#Heb 12:12]

and my flesh has grown gaunt with no fatness.

²⁵I also have become a reproach to them;

when they look at me, they shake their heads.

²⁶Help me, O Lord my God![#Ps 119:86]

Save me according to Your mercy,

²⁷that they may know that this is Your hand,[#Job 37:7]

that You, O Lord , have done it.

²⁸Let them curse, but You will bless;

when they arise, let them be ashamed,

but let Your servant rejoice.

²⁹Let my accusers be clothed with shame,

and let them cover themselves with their own shame as with a mantle.

³⁰I will greatly give thanks to the Lord with my mouth;

I will praise Him among the multitude.

³¹For He stands at the right hand of the poor,[#Ps 16:8; 73:23]

to save him from those who condemn his soul.