Psalms 59:14–16

¹⁶For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

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

²³He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.

¹⁰Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

¹BUT now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.

²Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?

³For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

⁴Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

⁵They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;)

⁶To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.

⁹We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.

²⁵And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.

²⁶And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king.

²⁷And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?

²⁸And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow.

²⁹So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.

⁴⁸Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.

⁵³And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:

⁵⁴So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:

⁵⁵So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.

⁵⁶The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,

⁵⁷And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.

⁵⁸If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;

¹¹Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.

²¹And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

⁴The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

⁵They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

⁹They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

¹⁰The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁷For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

⁸All these are the beginning of sorrows.

⁵¶ Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.

¹³Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.

²⁰Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

⁹And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.

⁵For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

⁸Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee.

⁶To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

⁷In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

⁷I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities;

⁷Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

²³Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict.

⁹Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence.

¹⁰The God of my mercy shall prevent me: God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies.

²In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.

³⁷David said moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee.

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

¹I WILL sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.

¹I LOVE the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

²Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

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

⁴Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

⁵Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.

⁵Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

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.

³For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.

¹³But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

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;

¹¹They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power;

¹HEAR me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

¹GOD is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

³My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

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.

¹²¶ So Michal let David down through a window: and he went, and fled, and escaped.

⁷Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

⁸Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.

¹I WILL sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.

³The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

⁶Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.

¹³For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.