< Psalms 31 >
1 For the end, a Psalm of David, [an utterance] of extreme fear. O Lord, I have hoped in you; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in your righteousness and rescue me.
2 Incline your ear to me; make haste to rescue me: be you to me for a protecting God, and for a house of refuge to save me.
3 For you are my strength and my refuge; and you shall guide me for your name's sake, and maintain me.
4 You shall bring me out of the snare which they have hidden for me; for you, O Lord, are my defender.
5 Into your hands I will commit my spirit: you have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
6 You has hated them that idly persist in vanities: but I have hoped in the Lord.
7 I will exult and be glad in your mercy: for you have looked upon mine affliction; you have saved my soul from distresses.
8 And you have not shut me up into the hands of the enemy: you have set my feet in a wide place.
9 Pity me, O Lord, for I am afflicted: my eye is troubled with indignation, my soul and by belly.
10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with groanings: my strength has been weakened through poverty, and my bones are troubled.
11 I became a reproach among all mine enemies, but exceedingly so to my neighbors, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that saw me without fled from me.
12 I have been forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am become as a broken vessel.
13 For I heard the slander of many that lived round about: when they were gathered together against me, they took counsel to take my life.
14 But I hoped in you, O Lord: I said, You are my God.
15 My lots are in your hands: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies,
16 and from them that persecute me. Make your face to shine upon your servant: save me in your mercy.
17 O Lord, let me not be ashamed, for I have called upon you: let the ungodly be ashamed, and brought down to Hades. (Sheol )
18 Let the deceitful lips become dumb, which speak iniquity against the righteous with pride and scorn.
19 How abundant is the multitude of your goodness, O Lord, which you have laid up for them that fear you! you have wrought [it] out for them that hope on you, in the presence of the sons of men.
20 You will hide them in the secret of your presence from the vexation of man: you will screen them in a tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord: for he has magnified his mercy in a fortified city.
22 But I said in my extreme fear, I am cast out from the sight of your eyes: therefore you did listen, O Lord, to the voice of my supplication when I cried to you.
23 Love the Lord, all you his saints: for the Lord seeks for truth, and renders [a reward] to them that deal very proudly.
24 Be of good courage, and let your heart be strengthened, all you that hope in the Lord.
