Cast Your Burden on the Lord
To the choirmaster: with astringed instruments. A Maskil of David.
bGive ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!
2 Attend to me, and answer me;
I am restless ain my complaint and I bmoan,
3 because of the noise of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they adrop trouble upon me,
and in anger they bear a grudge against me.
4 My heart is in anguish within me;
athe terrors of death have fallen upon me.
5 Fear and trembling come upon me,
and ahorror boverwhelms me.
6 And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
7 ayes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah
8 I would hurry to find a shelter
from athe raging wind and tempest.”
9 Destroy, O Lord, adivide their tongues;
for I see bviolence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they go around it
on its walls,
and ainiquity and trouble are within it;
11 ruin is in its midst;
aoppression and fraud
do not depart from its marketplace.
12 For it is not an enemy who taunts me—
then I could bear it;
it is not an adversary who adeals insolently with me—
then I could hide from him.
13 aBut it is you, a man, my equal,
my companion, my familiar friend.
14 We used to take sweet counsel together;
within God’s house we walked in athe throng.
15 Let death steal over them;
let them go down to Sheol aalive;
for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.
16 But I call to God,
and the Lord will save me.
17 aEvening and bmorning and at cnoon
I dutter my complaint and moan,
and he hears my voice.
18 He redeems my soul in safety
from the battle that I wage,
for amany are arrayed against me.
19 God will give ear and humble them,
he who is aenthroned from of old, Selah
because they do not bchange
and do not fear God.
20 My companion astretched out his hand against his friends;
he violated his covenant.
21 His aspeech was bsmooth as butter,
yet war was in his heart;
his words were softer than oil,
yet they were cdrawn swords.
22 aCast your burden on the Lord,
and he will sustain you;
bhe will never permit
the righteous to be moved.
23 But you, O God, awill cast them down
into bthe pit of destruction;
men of cblood and treachery
shall not dlive out half their days.
But I will etrust in you.