1<> Do not hold thy peace, O God of my praise; 2for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me; they have spoken of me with a lying tongue. 3They compassed me about with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause. 4They have [responded] to my love by becoming my adversaries, but I [give myself unto] prayer. 5And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. 6Set thou the wicked man over him, and let Satan stand at his right hand. 7When he shall be judged, let him be condemned, and let his prayer become sin. 8Let his days be few, [and] let another take his office. 9Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. 10Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek [their bread] out of their desolate places. 11Let the extortioner catch all that he has, and let the strangers spoil his labour. 12Let there be no one to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. 13Let his posterity be cut off, [and] in the generation following let their name be blotted out. 14Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD, 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. 16Because he did not remember to show mercy but persecuted the man who is poor [in spirit] and destitute and broken in heart, that he might slay him. 17As he loved the curse, so let it come unto him; as he delighted not in the blessing, so let it be far from him. 18As he clothed himself with the curse like as with his garment, and it entered into his bowels like water and like oil into his bones. 19Let it be unto him as the garment [which] covers him and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. 20[Let] this [be] the reward from the LORD of those who spoke falsely against me and of those that speak evil against my soul. 21And thou, O GOD the Lord, do unto me for thy name's sake; because thy mercy [is] good, deliver me. 22For I [am] poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. 23I am gone like the shadow when it declines; I am tossed up and down [by the wind] as the locust. 24My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh fails for lack of fatness. 25I have become a reproach unto them; [when] they looked upon me they shook their heads. 26Help me, O LORD my God; O save me according to thy mercy, 27that they may know that this [is] thy hand, [that] thou, O LORD, hast done it. 28Let them curse, but bless thou; when they arise, let them be ashamed, but let thy servant rejoice. 29Let those who speak evil against me falsely be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a mantle. 30I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; [yea], I will praise him among the multitude. 31For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor [in spirit] to save his soul from those that judge him.: