⁷ O Lord, you have deceived me,
    and I was deceived;
you are stronger than I,
    and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all the day;
    everyone mocks me.
⁸ For whenever I speak, I cry out,
    I shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
    a reproach and derision all day long.
⁹ If I say, “I will not mention him,
    or speak any more in his name,”
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
    shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
    and I cannot.
¹⁰ For I hear many whispering.
    Terror is on every side!
“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
    say all my close friends,
    watching for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
    then we can overcome him
    and take our revenge on him.”
¹¹ But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;
    therefore my persecutors will stumble;
    they will not overcome me.
They will be greatly shamed,
    for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
    will never be forgotten.
¹² O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous,
    who sees the heart and the mind,^[a]
let me see your vengeance upon them,
    for to you have I committed my cause.

¹³ Sing to the Lord;
    praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
    from the hand of evildoers.

¹⁴ Cursed be the day
    on which I was born!
The day when my mother bore me,
    let it not be blessed!
¹⁵ Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father,
“A son is born to you,”
    making him very glad.
¹⁶ Let that man be like the cities
    that the Lord overthrew without pity;
let him hear a cry in the morning
    and an alarm at noon,
¹⁷ because he did not kill me in the womb;
    so my mother would have been my grave,
    and her womb forever great.
¹⁸ Why did I come out from the womb
    to see toil and sorrow,
    and spend my days in shame?