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They have spoken unto me with a lying tongue.

³They compassed me about also with words of hatred,

And fought against me without a cause.

⁴In return for my love they are my adversaries;

But I am all prayer.

⁵And they have laid upon me evil for good,

And hatred for my love:

 

⁶'Set Thou a wicked man over him;

And let an adversary stand at his right hand.

⁷When he is judged, let him go forth condemned;

And let his prayer be turned into sin.

⁸Let his days be few;

Let another take his charge.

⁹Let his children be fatherless,

And his wife a widow.

¹⁰Let his children be vagabonds, and beg;

And let them seek their bread out of their desolate places.

¹¹Let the creditor distrain all that he hath;

And let strangers make spoil of his labour.

¹²Let there be none to extend kindness unto him;

Neither let there be any to be gracious unto his fatherless children.

¹³Let his posterity be cut off;

In the generation following let their name be blotted out.

¹⁴Let the iniquity of his fathers be brought to remembrance unto the Lord;

And let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

¹⁵Let them be before the Lord continually,

That He may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

¹⁶Because that he remembered not to do kindness,

But persecuted the poor and needy man,

And the broken in heart he was ready to slay.

¹⁷Yea, he loved cursing, and it came unto him;

And he delighted not in blessing, and it is far from him.

¹⁸He clothed himself also with cursing as with his raiment,

And it is come into his inward parts like water,

And like oil into his bones.

¹⁹Let it be unto him as the garment which he putteth on,

And for the girdle wherewith he is girded continually.'

 

²⁰This would mine adversaries effect from the Lord,

And they that speak evil against my soul.

²¹But Thou, O God the Lord, deal with me for Thy name's sake;

Because Thy mercy is good, deliver Thou me.

²²For I am poor and needy,

And my heart is wounded within me.

²³I am gone like the shadow when it lengtheneth;

I am shaken off as the locust.

²⁴My knees totter through fasting;

And my flesh is lean, and hath no fatness.

²⁵I am become also a taunt unto them;

When they see me, they shake their head.

 

²⁶Help me, O Lord my God;

O save me according to Thy mercy;

²⁷That they may know that this is Thy hand;

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