The Song of the Slandered

1To the overseer, to David a chanting. O God of my praise, thou wilt not be silent;

2For the mouth of the unjust, and the mouth of deceit opened against me; they spake with me the tongue of false-hood.

3And with words of hatred they surrounded me, and they will war with me gratuitously.

4For my love they will oppose me: and I for prayer.

5And they will set against me evil instead of good, and hatred for my love.

6Appoint over him the unjust one, and the adversary shall stand at his right hand.

7In his being judged he shall come forth condemned: and his prayer shall be for sin.

8His days shall be few; his charge another shall take.

9His sons shall be orphans, and his wife a widow.

10And shaking his sons shall wander about, and they asked and sought from their desolations.

11The creditor shall lay snares for all which is to him, and strangers shall plunder his labor.

12There shall not be to him any drawing out mercy, and there shall not be any compassionating to his orphans.

13His descendants shall be for cutting off; in the later generation their name shall be wiped off.

14The iniquity of his fathers will be in remembrance to Jehovah, and the sins of his mother shall not be wiped of.

15They shall be before Jehovah always, and their remembrance shall be cut off from the earth.

16Because he remembered not to do mercy, and he will pursue the poor and needy man to slay the dejected of heart.

17And he will love cursing, and it shall come to him: and he delighted not in praise, and it shall be far from him.

18And he will put on cursing as his garment, and it shall come into his midst as water, and as oil into his bones.

19It shall be to him as the garment shall cover him, and for a girdle it shall gird him always.

20This the doing of those lying in wait for me from Jehovah, and speaking evil against my soul.

21And thou Jehovah my Lord do with me for sake of thy name: for good thy mercy, deliver thou me.

22For poor and needy am I, and my heart wounded in my midst.

23As the shadow according to its declining I was gone: I was shaken off as the locust.

24My knees were weak from fasting, and my flesh failed from fatness.

25And I was a reproach to them: they will see me and they will shake the head.

26Help me, O Jehovah my God: save me according to thy mercy:

27And they shall know that this is thy hand; thou, O Jehovah, didst it.

28They will curse and thou wilt bless: they arose and they shall be ashamed; and thy servant shall be glad.

29They lying in wait for me shall put on shame, and they shall be covered with their shame as an upper garment.

30I will praise Jehovah greatly with my mouth; and in the midst of many will I praise him.

31For he will stand at the right hand of the needy to save his soul from the judges.