69 Save me, O God,
because waters have come up to my neck.^[b]
2 I sink in the mud of the deep, and there is no foothold.
I have come to watery depths,
and the torrent floods over me.
³ I am weary with my calling out; my throat is parched.
My eyes are exhausted in my waiting for my God.
⁴ More numerous than the hairs of my head
are those hating me without a cause.
Those who are destroying me—my enemies wrongfully^[c]— are mighty.
What I did not steal, I then must restore.
⁵ O God, you yourself know^[d] my foolishness,
and my guilty deeds are not hidden from you.
⁶ Let those who wait for you not be put to shame because of me,
O Lord Yahweh of hosts.
Let those who seek you not be disgraced because of me,
O God of Israel.
⁷ Because on account of you I have borne reproach;
disgrace has covered my face.
⁸ I have become a stranger to my brothers
and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,
⁹ because the zeal for your house^[e] has consumed me,
and the reproaches of those reproaching you have fallen on me.
¹⁰ When I wept in the fasting of my soul,
it became reproaches for me.
¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became for them a byword.
¹² Those sitting at the gate talk about me
as also^[f] the songs of the drunkards.
¹³ But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Yahweh, for a favorable time,
O God, according to the abundance of your loyal love.
Answer me with the faithfulness of your salvation.
¹⁴ Deliver me from the mud and do not let me sink.
Let me be delivered from those who hate me
and from the watery depths.
¹⁵ Do not let the torrent of waters flood over me,
or the deep swallow me,
or the pit close its mouth over me.
¹⁶ Answer me, O Yahweh, because your loyal love is good;
according to your abundant mercies, turn to me,
¹⁷ and do not hide your face from your servant.
Because I am in trouble, answer me quickly.
¹⁸ Draw near to my soul; redeem it.
Because of my enemies, ransom me.
¹⁹ You know my reproach, my shame and my disgrace.
Fully known^[g] to you are all my adversaries.
²⁰ Reproach has broken my heart and I am sick.
And I hoped for sympathy, but there was none,
and for comforters, but I found none.
²¹ They also gave me gall for food,^[h]
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
²² Let their table before them be a trap,
and their times of peace a snare.
²³ Let their eyes be dark so they cannot see,
and make their loins continually tremble.
²⁴ Pour out your indignation on them,
and let your burning anger overtake them.
²⁵ Let their camp be desolate.
Let none dwell in their tents,
²⁶ because they persecute those whom you, yourself, have struck,
and they tell of the pain of those you have wounded.
²⁷ Add guilt on top of their guilt,^[i]
and do not let them be acquitted.^[j]
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
and let them not be recorded with the righteous.
²⁹ But as for me, though I am afflicted and pained,
your salvation will protect^[k] me, O God.
³⁰ I will praise the name of God in song,
and magnify him with thanksgiving.
³¹ For Yahweh it will be better than an ox or bull,
horned and hoofed.^[l]
32 The afflicted will see and rejoice.
O God seekers, let your heart revive,^[m]
33 because Yahweh hears the needy
and does not despise his own who are prisoners.
³⁴ Let heavens and earth praise him,
the seas and all that moves in them,
³⁵ because God will save Zion
and build the cities of Judah,
that they may dwell there and possess it.
³⁶ And the offspring of his servants will inherit it,
and those who love his name will abide in it.