10 Lord, why are you standing aloof and far away? Why do you hide when I need you the most?

² Come and deal with all these proud and wicked men who viciously persecute the poor. Pour upon these men the evil they planned for others! ³ For these men brag of all their evil lusts; they revile God and congratulate those the Lord abhors, whose only goal in life is money.

⁴ These wicked men, so proud and haughty, seem to think that God is dead.^[a] They wouldn’t think of looking for him! ⁵ Yet there is success in everything they do, and their enemies fall before them. They do not see your punishment awaiting them. ⁶ They boast that neither God nor man can ever keep them down—somehow they’ll find a way!

⁷ Their mouths are full of profanity and lies and fraud. They are always boasting of their evil plans. ⁸ They lurk in dark alleys of the city and murder passersby. ⁹ Like lions they crouch silently, waiting to pounce upon the poor. Like hunters they catch their victims in their traps. ¹⁰ The unfortunate are overwhelmed by their superior strength and fall beneath their blows. ¹¹ “God isn’t watching,” they say to themselves; “he’ll never know!”

¹² O Lord, arise! O God, crush them! Don’t forget the poor or anyone else in need. ¹³ Why do you let the wicked get away with this contempt for God? For they think that God will never call them to account. ¹⁴ Lord, you see what they are doing. You have noted each evil act. You know what trouble and grief they have caused. Now punish them. O Lord, the poor man trusts himself to you; you are known as the helper of the helpless. ¹⁵ Break the arms of these wicked men. Go after them until the last of them is destroyed.

¹⁶ The Lord is King forever and forever. Those who follow other gods shall be swept from his land.

¹⁷ Lord, you know the hopes of humble people. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort their hearts by helping them. ¹⁸ You will be with the orphans and all who are oppressed, so that mere earthly man will terrify them no longer.