Psalm 140

⁴⁸who delivers me from my enemies. You exalt me above my foes; You rescue me from violent men.

⁴Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked. Keep me safe from men of violence who scheme to make me stumble.

⁴Deliver me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and ruthless.

²How long, O Lord, must I call for help but You do not hear, or cry out to You, “Violence!” but You do not save?

³Why do You make me see iniquity? Why do You tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict abounds.

¹³Arise, O Lord, confront them! Bring them to their knees; deliver me from the wicked by Your sword,

¹¹May no slanderer be established in the land; may calamity hunt down the man of violence.

⁶They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps while they wait to take my life.

⁴Even on his bed he plots wickedness; he sets himself on a path that is not good; he fails to reject evil.

⁵They hold fast to their evil purpose; they speak of hiding their snares. “Who will see them?” they say.

⁶They devise injustice and say, “We have perfected a secret plan.” For the inner man and the heart are mysterious.

²⁰Deceit is in the hearts of those who devise evil, but the counselors of peace have joy.

⁷I am in favor of peace; but when I speak, they want war.

⁶For they prepare their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

⁴Their venom is like the venom of a snake, like a cobra that shuts its ears,

¹³“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.”

¹⁴“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

³I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ.

³²In the end it bites like a snake and stings like a viper.

⁵Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.

⁶The tongue also is a fire, a world of wickedness among the parts of the body. It pollutes the whole person, sets the course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

⁷All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man,

¹¹Let not the foot of the proud come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.

⁵My steps have held to Your paths; my feet have not slipped.

⁴Deliver me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and ruthless.

³²Though the wicked lie in wait for the righteous, and seek to slay them,

³³the Lord will not leave them in their power or let them be condemned under judgment.

⁸Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings

⁹from the wicked who assail me, from my mortal enemies who surround me.

¹For the choirmaster. With stringed instruments. A Maskil of David. Listen to my prayer, O God, and do not ignore my plea.

²Attend to me and answer me. I am restless in my complaint, and distraught

³Although my spirit grows faint within me, You know my way. Along the path I travel they have hidden a snare for me.

⁷For without cause they laid their net for me; without reason they dug a pit for my soul.

²²Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring raiders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet.

²⁰Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good on their behalf, to turn Your wrath from them.

²⁰So they watched Him closely and sent spies who pretended to be sincere. They were hoping to catch Him in His words in order to hand Him over to the rule and authority of the governor.

²¹“Teacher,” they inquired, “we know that You speak and teach correctly. You show no partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

⁸⁵The arrogant have dug pits for me in violation of Your law.

²I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.”

¹⁴But I trust in You, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”

⁵⁷The Lord is my portion; I have promised to keep Your words.

⁵I cry to You, O Lord: “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”

⁹This third I will bring through the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”

²⁴“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”

⁷My salvation and my honor rest on God, my strong rock; my refuge is in God.

¹For the choirmaster. Of David the servant of the Lord, who sang this song to the Lord on the day the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said: I love You, O Lord, my strength.

²The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

²⁶He will call to Me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock of my salvation.’

²He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress; I will never be shaken.

²⁷The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He drives out the enemy before you, giving the command, ‘Destroy him!’

²⁸So Israel dwells securely; the fountain of Jacob lives untroubled in a land of grain and new wine, where even the heavens drip with dew.

⁷The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart rejoices, and I give thanks to Him with my song.

⁸The Lord is the strength of His people, a stronghold of salvation for His anointed.

²In pride the wicked pursue the needy; let them be caught in the schemes they devise.

³For the wicked man boasts in the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.

¹²Do not hand me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence.

¹²He thwarts the schemes of the crafty, so that their hands find no success.

¹³He catches the wise in their craftiness, and sweeps away the plans of the cunning.

³¹Now someone told David: “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David pleaded, “O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness!”

²⁷if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the Lord who did all this.’”

²⁰Can a corrupt throne be Your ally—one devising mischief by decree?

²¹They band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.

¹⁶His trouble recoils on himself, and his violence falls on his own head.

⁷A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul.

²³He will bring upon them their own iniquity and destroy them for their wickedness. The Lord our God will destroy them.

¹³An evil man is trapped by his rebellious speech, but a righteous man escapes from trouble.

¹¹The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

⁶Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

⁶On the wicked He will rain down fiery coals and sulfur; a scorching wind will be their portion.

⁹You will place them in a fiery furnace at the time of Your appearing. In His wrath the Lord will engulf them, and the fire will consume them.

¹⁵And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

⁸But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”

²³So Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning struck the earth. So the Lord rained down hail upon the land of Egypt.

²⁴The hail fell and the lightning continued flashing through it. The hail was so severe that nothing like it had ever been seen in all the land of Egypt from the time it became a nation.

¹³The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded—hailstones and coals of fire.

¹⁴He shot His arrows and scattered the foes; He hurled lightning and routed them.

²¹Evil will slay the wicked, and the haters of the righteous will be condemned.

²¹Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

¹¹Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done.

²¹Disaster pursues sinners, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.

²⁰The one with a perverse heart finds no good, and he whose tongue is deceitful falls into trouble.

¹⁴Behold, the wicked man travails with evil; he conceives trouble and births falsehood.

¹⁵He has dug a hole and hollowed it out; he has fallen into a pit of his own making.

⁴For You have upheld my just cause; You sit on Your throne judging righteously.

⁴⁹then may You hear from heaven, Your dwelling place, their prayer and petition, and may You uphold their cause.

⁴⁵then may You hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and may You uphold their cause.

¹⁰Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless,

¹¹for their Redeemer is strong; He will take up their case against you.

¹⁶He took up the cause of the poor and needy, and so it went well with him. Is this not what it means to know Me?” declares the Lord.

¹⁰All my bones will exclaim, “Who is like You, O Lord, who delivers the afflicted from the aggressor, the poor and needy from the robber?”

¹¹You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.

⁷For the Lord is righteous; He loves justice. The upright will see His face.

¹⁷After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

¹⁰Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their labor.

²⁴Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, that they may see the glory You gave Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.