Psalms 17
17
(A prayer by David.)
The Prayer of an Innocent Person
1I am innocent, Lord!
Won't you listen as I pray
and beg for help?
I am honest!
Please hear my prayer.
2Only you can say
that I am innocent,
because only your eyes
can see the truth.
3You know my heart,
and even during the night
you have tested me
and found me innocent.
I have made up my mind
never to tell a lie.
4I don't do like others.
I obey your teachings
and am not cruel.
5I have followed you,
without ever stumbling.
6I pray to you, God,
because you will help me.
Listen and answer my prayer!
7Show your wonderful love.
Your mighty arm protects those
who run to you for safety
from their enemies.
8Protect me as you would
your very own eyes;
hide me in the shadow
of your wings.
9Don't let my brutal enemies
attack from all sides
and kill me.
10They refuse to show mercy,
and they keep bragging.
11They have caught up with me!
My enemies are everywhere,
eagerly hoping to smear me
in the dirt.
12They are like hungry lions
hunting for food,
or like young lions
hiding in ambush.
13Do something, Lord!
Attack and defeat them.
Take your sword and save me
from those evil people.
14Use your powerful arm
and rescue me
from the hands of mere humans
whose world won't last.#17.14 Use … last: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
You provide food
for those you love.
Their children have plenty,
and their grandchildren
will have more than enough.
15I am innocent, Lord,
and I will see your face!
When I awake, all I want
is to see you as you are.
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Psalms 17: CEV
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Psalm 17
17
1 Unto the end. For David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke the words of this canticle to the Lord, in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said:
2 I will love you, O Lord my strength.
3 The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my liberator. My God is my helper, and I hope in him: my protector, and the horn of my salvation, and my support.
4 Praising, I will call upon the Lord. And I will be saved from my enemies.
5 The sorrows of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity dismayed me.
6 The sorrows of Hell encompassed me, and the snares of death intercepted me.
7 In my tribulation, I called upon the Lord, and I cried out to my God. And he listened to my voice from his holy temple. And my cry in his presence entered into his ears.
8 The earth was shaken, and it trembled. The foundations of the mountains were disturbed, and they were shaken, because he was angry with them.
9 A smoke ascended by his wrath, and a fire flared up from his face: coals were kindled by it.
10 He bent the heavens, and they descended. And darkness was under his feet.
11 And he ascended upon the cherubim, and he flew: he flew upon the feathers of the winds.
12 And he set darkness as his hiding place, with his tabernacle all around him: dark waters in the clouds of the air.
13 At the brightness that was before his sight, the clouds crossed by, with hail and coals of fire.
14 And the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice: hail and coals of fire.
15 And he sent forth his arrows and scattered them. He multiplied lightnings, and he set them in disarray.
16 Then the fountains of waters appeared, and the foundations of the world were revealed, by your rebuke, O Lord, by the inspiration of the Spirit of your wrath.
17 He sent from on high, and he accepted me. And he took me up, out of many waters.
18 He rescued me from my strongest enemies, and from those who hated me. For they had been too strong for me.
19 They intercepted me in the day of my affliction, and the Lord became my protector.
20 And he led me out, into a wide place. He accomplished my salvation, because he willed me.
21 And the Lord will reward me according to my justice, and he will repay me according to the purity of my hands.
22 For I have preserved the ways of the Lord, and I have not behaved impiously before my God.
23 For all his judgments are in my sight, and his justice, I have not pushed away from me.
24 And I will be immaculate together with him, and I will keep myself from my iniquity.
25 And the Lord will reward me according to my justice and according to the purity of my hands before his eyes.
26 With the holy, you will be holy, and with the innocent, you will be innocent,
27 and with the elect, you will be elect, and with the perverse, you will be perverse.
28 For you will save the humble people, but you will bring down the eyes of the arrogant.
29 For you illuminate my lamp, O Lord. My God, enlighten my darkness.
30 For in you, I will be delivered from temptation; and with my God, I will climb over a wall.
31 As for my God, his way is undefiled. The eloquence of the Lord has been examined by fire. He is the protector of all who hope in him.
32 For who is God, except the Lord? And who is God, except our God?
33 It is God who has wrapped me with virtue and made my way immaculate.
34 It is he who has perfected my feet, like the feet of deer, and who stations me upon the heights.
35 It is he who trains my hands for battle. And you have set my arms like a bow of brass.
36 And you have given me the protection of your salvation. And your right hand sustains me. And your discipline has corrected me unto the end. And your discipline itself will teach me.
37 You have expanded my footsteps under me, and my tracks have not been weakened.
38 I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them. And I will not turn back until they have failed.
39 I will break them, and they will not be able to stand. They will fall under my feet.
40 And you have wrapped me with virtue for the battle. And those rising up against me, you have subdued under me.
41 And you have given the back of my enemies to me, and you have destroyed those who hated me.
42 They cried out, but there was none to save them, to the Lord, but he did not heed them.
43 And I will crush them into dust before the face of the wind, so that I will obliterate them like the mud in the streets.
44 You will rescue me from the contradictions of the people. You will set me at the head of the Gentiles.
45 A people I did not know has served me. As soon as their ears heard, they were obedient to me.
46 The sons of foreigners have been deceitful to me, the sons of foreigners have grown weak with time, and they have wavered from their paths.
47 The Lord lives, and blessed is my God, and may the God of my salvation be exalted:
48 O God, who vindicates me and who subdues the people under me, my liberator from my enraged enemies.
49 And you will exalt me above those who rise up against me. From the iniquitous man, you will rescue me.
50 Because of this, O Lord, I will confess to you among the nations, and I will compose a psalm to your name:
51 magnifying the salvation of his king, and showing mercy to David, his Christ, and to his offspring, even for all time.
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