Psalms 55:1–11

¹²For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

⁶Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications.

¹HEAR my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.

⁹Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.

¹HEAR my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.

¹GIVE ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth.

⁷Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

¹SAVE me, O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength.

²Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth.

⁸O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

¹GIVE ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation.

⁴O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?

⁸Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

¹HEAR the right, O Lord, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.

¹UNTO thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

¹O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

¹⁴Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

¹⁹But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.

³I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.

¹¹We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

¹HEAR my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.

⁹For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,

¹⁰Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.

⁶I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.

²For thou art the God of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

¹HOW long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

²How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?

³When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

⁷And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial:

⁸The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.

¹¹False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.

¹²Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.

³And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.

¹⁹And said unto the king, Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me, neither do thou remember that which thy servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart.

³⁴To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,

³⁶To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.

⁵⁹Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;

⁵For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

⁹From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.

³For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah.

¹¹Saying, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him.

⁸They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily.

³The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.

³³And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;

³⁴And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.

⁸For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:

⁹But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

¹⁰Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;

⁷Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;

⁴The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

⁵The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

¹⁰I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

¹¹I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

¹²Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

¹³I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

³⁷And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.

³⁸Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.

³For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

⁴My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.

⁵By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.

³My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O Lord, how long?

²⁰Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

³For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

²⁷Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

⁶Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.

¹²⁰My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments.

⁴⁴And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

¹⁴And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape from Absalom: make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword.

¹⁸They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.

⁴My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.

¹⁵Therefore am I troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him.

¹⁶For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me:

⁴For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.

⁶O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.

²From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

¹⁵I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.

¹⁶Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

¹IN the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?

¹⁴And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

⁹If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

²Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

¹⁴And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape from Absalom: make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword.

¹²Then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to separate himself thence in the midst of the people.

²¹And it came to pass, after they were departed, that they came up out of the well, and went and told king David, and said unto David, Arise, and pass quickly over the water: for thus hath Ahithophel counselled against you.

²²Then David arose, and all the people that were with him, and they passed over Jordan: by the morning light there lacked not one of them that was not gone over Jordan.

⁴Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

⁵Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

¹AND David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand.

⁶And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.

²⁵And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

²⁶And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

²⁷And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

⁴The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

¹²¶ Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

¹³The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

⁷As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds.

³¹¶ And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.

⁶But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.

⁷And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided.

⁸For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.

⁹And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.

¹⁰And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle.

⁷Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

⁸So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

⁹Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

¹MOREOVER Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night:

²And I will come upon him while he is weary and weak handed, and will make him afraid: and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only:

³And I will bring back all the people unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: so all the people shall be in peace.

⁴And the saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel.

⁵Then said Absalom, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear likewise what he saith.

⁶And when Hushai was come to Absalom, Absalom spake unto him, saying, Ahithophel hath spoken after this manner: shall we do after his saying? if not; speak thou.

⁷And Hushai said unto Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel hath given is not good at this time.

⁸For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.

⁹Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in some other place: and it will come to pass, when some of them be overthrown at the first, that whosoever heareth it will say, There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom.

¹⁰And he also that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt: for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which be with him are valiant men.

¹¹Therefore I counsel that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person.

¹²So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground: and of him and of all the men that are with him there shall not be left so much as one.

¹³Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there be not one small stone found there.

¹⁴And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom.

¹⁴I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

⁴⁵¶ Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him?

⁴⁶The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.

⁴⁷Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?

⁴⁸Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?

⁴⁹But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.

⁵⁰Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,)

⁵¹Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?

⁵²They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.

⁵³And every man went unto his own house.

³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

³⁸Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

¹⁴And at evening let them return; and let them make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.

¹⁵Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.

⁶Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

⁸The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

⁹¶ Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

¹⁰We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

¹¹We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

¹²For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

¹³In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

¹⁴And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

¹⁵Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

²⁸¶ Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover.

²⁴But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him.

⁴And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

⁶They return at evening: they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.

¹¹Saul also sent messengers unto David’s house, to watch him, and to slay him in the morning: and Michal David’s wife told him, saying, If thou save not thy life to night, to morrow thou shalt be slain.

²¹And Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Go in unto thy father’s concubines, which he hath left to keep the house; and all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father: then shall the hands of all that are with thee be strong.

²²So they spread Absalom a tent upon the top of the house; and Absalom went in unto his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

¹MOREOVER Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night:

²And I will come upon him while he is weary and weak handed, and will make him afraid: and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only:

⁶For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

³Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons.

¹WOE to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.

²And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

¹WOE to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!

²She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God.

³Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

⁷Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

⁹For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.

⁵¹¶ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

⁵²Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

²⁶For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.

²⁷As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.

⁷His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.

¹MOREOVER the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

²Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations.

³Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord God, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.

⁴Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.

⁵Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which art infamous and much vexed.

⁶Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.

⁷In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

⁸Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.

⁹In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness.

¹⁰In thee have they discovered their fathers’ nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.

¹¹And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour’s wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father’s daughter.

¹²In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.

³And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord.

⁴Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.

⁵And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁴And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him.

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

³They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.