Psalm 55

For the music leader. With stringed instruments. A maskil^x of David.

• 55 God, listen to my prayer;
• don’t avoid my request!
• ² Pay attention! Answer me!
• I can’t sit still while complaining.
• I’m beside myself
• ³ over the enemy’s noise,
• at the wicked person’s racket,
• because they bring disaster on me
• and harass me furiously.

• ⁴ My heart pounds in my chest
• because death’s terrors have reached me.
• ⁵ Fear and trembling have come upon me;
• I’m shaking all over.
• ⁶ I say to myself,
• I wish I had wings like a dove!
• I’d fly away and rest.
• ⁷ I’d run so far away!
• I’d live in the desert. Selah
• ⁸ I’d hurry to my hideout,
• far from the rushing wind and storm.

• ⁹ Baffle them, my Lord!
• Confuse their language
• because I see violence and conflict in the city.
• ¹⁰ Day and night they make their rounds on its walls,
• and evil and misery live inside it.
• ¹¹ Disaster lives inside it;
• oppression and fraud never leave the town square.

• ¹² It’s not an enemy that is insulting me—
• I could handle that.
• It’s not someone who hates me
• who is exalted over me—
• I could hide from them.
• ¹³ No. It’s you, my equal,
• my close companion, my good friend!
• ¹⁴ It was so pleasant when
• together we entered God’s house with the crowd.

• ¹⁵ Let death devastate my enemies;
• let them go to the grave^y alive
• because evil lives with them—
• even inside them!
• ¹⁶ But I call out to God,
• and the LORD will rescue me.
• ¹⁷ At evening, morning, and midday
• I complain and moan
• so that God will hear my voice.
• ¹⁸ He saves me,^z unharmed, from my struggle,
• though there are many who are out to get me.
• ¹⁹ God, who is enthroned from ancient days,
• will hear and humble them Selah
• because they don’t change
• and they don’t worship God.

• ²⁰ My friend attacked his allies,
• breaking his covenant.
• ²¹ Though his talk is smoother than butter,
• war is in his heart;
• though his words are more silky than oil,
• they are really drawn swords:
• ²² “ Cast your burden on the LORD —
• he will support you!
• God will never let the righteous be shaken! ”

• ²³ But you, God, bring the wicked
• down to the deepest pit.
• Let bloodthirsty and treacherous people
• not live out even half their days.
• But me? I trust in you!