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This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.

A prayer for help

12 Lord, please help me!
All the good people have gone away!
    No kind or faithful people remain.
Everybody tells lies to one another.
When they say nice things,
    they do it to deceive their friends.
Lord, please shut their mouths!
When they deceive people or they boast,
    stop them doing that!
They say:
‘Nobody can tell us what to do!
    We will say what we like to get what we want!’
But the Lord says:
    ‘Now I will do something!
I know the cruel things that wicked people do to poor people.
When weak people cry with pain, I hear them.
So I will make them safe,
    as they want me to do for them.’
The Lord's promises are true.
We can trust them,
    because they are pure.
They are as pure as silver
    that people have put in a hot fire seven times.[a]
Yes Lord, you will take care of the poor people.
You will always keep each one of them safe
    from all those evil people.
But if people praise evil things,
    then wicked people will boast more and more.

Footnotes

  1. 12:6 People dig silver from the ground. They use a hot fire to make it clean and pure. It is then very beautiful and of great value. David is saying that God's words are also like this. We can trust that he will do what he says.