Psalm 7

A David Psalm

1-2 God! God! I am running to you for dear life; the chase is wild. If they catch me, I'm finished: ripped to shreds by foes fierce as lions, dragged into the forest and left unlooked for, unremembered.
3-5 God, if I've done what they say— betrayed my friends, ripped off my enemies— If my hands are really that dirty, let them get me, walk all over me, leave me flat on my face in the dirt.
6-8 Stand up, God; pit your holy fury against my furious enemies. Wake up, God. My accusers have packed the courtroom; it's judgment time. Take your place on the bench, reach for your gavel, throw out the false charges against me. I'm ready, confident in your verdict: "Innocent."
9-11 Close the book on Evil, God, but publish your mandate for us. You get us ready for life: you probe for our soft spots, you knock off our rough edges. And I'm feeling so fit, so safe: made right, kept right. God in solemn honor does things right, but his nerves are sandpapered raw.
12-13 Nobody gets by with anything. God is already in action— Sword honed on his whetstone, bow strung, arrow on the string, Lethal weapons in hand, each arrow a flaming missile.
14 Look at that guy! He had sex with sin, he's pregnant with evil. Oh, look! He's having the baby—a Lie-Baby!
15-16 See that man shoveling day after day, digging, then concealing, his man-trap down that lonely stretch of road? Go back and look again—you'll see him in it headfirst, legs waving in the breeze. That's what happens: mischief backfires; violence boomerangs.
17 I'm thanking God, who makes things right. I'm singing the fame of heaven-high God.

Psalm 7

1 O Jehovah my God, in thee do I take refuge: Save me from all them that pursue me, and deliver me,

2 Lest they tear my soul like a lion, Rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.

3 O Jehovah my God, if I have done this; If there be iniquity in my hands;

4 If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (Yea, I have delivered him that without cause was mine adversary;)

5 Let the enemy pursue my soul, and overtake it; Yea, let him tread my life down to the earth, And lay my glory in the dust. Selah

6 Arise, O Jehovah, in thine anger; Lift up thyself against the rage of mine adversaries, And awake for me; thou hast commanded judgment.

7 And let the congregation of the peoples compass thee about; And over them return thou on high.

8 Jehovah ministereth judgment to the peoples: Judge me, O Jehovah, according to my righteousness, and to mine integrity that is in me.

9 O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish thou the righteous: For the righteous God trieth the minds and hearts.

10 My shield is with God, Who saveth the upright in heart.

11 God is a righteous judge, Yea, a God that hath indignation every day.

12 If a man turn not, he will whet his sword; He hath bent his bow, and made it ready.

13 He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; He maketh his arrows fiery shafts.

14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity; Yea, he hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.

15 He hath made a pit, and digged it, And is fallen into the ditch which he made.

16 His mischief shall return upon his own head, And his violence shall come down upon his own pate.

17 I will give thanks unto Jehovah according to his righteousness, And will sing praise to the name of Jehovah Most High.