Psalms 64:1–8

¹HEAR my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.

²And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

³For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

⁴I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

⁵⁵¶ I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.

⁵⁶Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.

¹OUT of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

²Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

¹DELIVER me, O Lord, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man;

¹LORD, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee.

²⁴Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Cæsar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.

¹³For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.

¹⁴But I trusted in thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my God.

¹⁵My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.

¹GIVE ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication.

²Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise;

⁹Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace:

¹⁰For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.

⁸Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,

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

⁷Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.

²Mine enemies would daily swallow me up: for they be many that fight against me, O thou most High.

³What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

⁴In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.

⁹Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me.

²⁰Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

²Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men.

¹⁹But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.

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.

⁵For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.

²And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

²³Yet, Lord, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.

¹LORD, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me.

³And desired favour against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him.

²The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,

⁶They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.

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.

¹⁴And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul.

¹⁵Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief captain that he bring him down unto you to morrow, as though ye would inquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him.

⁶And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

³Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,

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

²²Go, I pray you, prepare yet, and know and see his place where his haunt is, and who hath seen him there: for it is told me that he dealeth very subtilly.

²³See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself, and come ye again to me with the certainty, and I will go with you: and it shall come to pass, if he be in the land, that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah.

¹⁸And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas:

¹⁹(Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.)

²⁰Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.

²¹But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.

²²And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.

²³And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.

⁶And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

⁷For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:

⁸But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

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.

⁴My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.

⁷Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.

¹⁷¶ No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.

¹⁸There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.

²For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.

¹⁴There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.

²²Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:

²³Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

¹⁹God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.

⁸He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.

⁹He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.

²For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.

¹¹And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.

¹⁰And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night.

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.

¹⁴Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.

⁶When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.

¹¹And our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease.

³For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul: the mighty are gathered against me; not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord.

⁴They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold.

⁷But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.

⁵The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah.

¹¹He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.

¹²Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.

¹³And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?

⁷Behold, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, doth hear?

⁷Yet they say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

¹⁹¶ Then came up the Ziphites to Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself with us in strong holds in the wood, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of Jeshimon?

²⁰Now therefore, O king, come down according to all the desire of thy soul to come down; and our part shall be to deliver him into the king’s hand.

²¹And Saul said, Blessed be ye of the Lord; for ye have compassion on me.

²²Go, I pray you, prepare yet, and know and see his place where his haunt is, and who hath seen him there: for it is told me that he dealeth very subtilly.

²³See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself, and come ye again to me with the certainty, and I will go with you: and it shall come to pass, if he be in the land, that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah.

⁹The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

⁶They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.

³Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,

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

⁶Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.

¹¹If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

¹²Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

¹³We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

¹⁴Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

⁷Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.

¹⁵Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

¹⁰And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

⁹¶ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

¹⁰I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

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

¹⁵Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?

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.

⁵Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

⁴¶ Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.

⁵Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.

²⁹Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man?

³⁰They answered and said unto him, If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.

⁵Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.

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

⁹¶ And David said to Saul, Wherefore hearest thou men’s words, saying, Behold, David seeketh thy hurt?

¹⁰¶ And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master.

⁹¶ Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub.

¹¹Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.

⁷The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.

¹⁵Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.

¹²If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.

¹³He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.

²For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

³For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

¹⁴Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.

³And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was wounded of the archers.

⁴Then said Saul to his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. So Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.

⁵And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise on the sword, and died.

⁶So Saul died, and his three sons, and all his house died together.

⁷And when all the men of Israel that were in the valley saw that they fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, then they forsook their cities, and fled: and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.

²³I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

⁴²I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

¹³Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.

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.

¹HE, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

¹⁹How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.

³⁴And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness: wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded.

¹²He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

¹³He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.

⁴⁰Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

⁵⁰The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,

⁵¹And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁴That they may shoot in secret at the perfect: suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not.

⁷A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.

¹³The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips: but the just shall come out of trouble.

⁹As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.

¹⁶To make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head.

²⁷For was not Israel a derision unto thee? was he found among thieves? for since thou spakest of him, thou skippedst for joy.

⁶Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips testify against thee.

²²And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:

⁴¹They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

⁷And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

⁷All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

¹¹I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.

³And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.

⁴Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.

⁵And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.

⁶So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.

⁷¶ And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.

³⁴And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.

⁶The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him:

¹²For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak.

³When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence.

¹⁰Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

⁴And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.