Page:Book of common prayer (TEC, 1979).pdf/630

 Let their way be dark and slippery, * and let the angel of the pursue them.

For they have secretly spread a net for me without a cause; * without a cause they have dug a pit to take me alive.

Let ruin come upon them unawares; * let them be caught in the net they hid; let them fall into the pit they dug.

Then I will be joyful in the ; * I will glory in his victory.

My very bones will say, “, who is like you? * You deliver the poor from those who are too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.”

Malicious witnesses rise up against me; * they charge me with matters I know nothing about.

They pay me evil in exchange for good; * my soul is full of despair.

But when they were sick I dressed in sack&#8209;cloth * and humbled myself by fasting;

I prayed with my whole heart, as one would for a friend or a brother; * I behaved like one who mourns for his mother, bowed down and grieving.

But when I stumbled, they were glad and gathered together; they gathered against me; * strangers whom I did not know tore me to pieces and would not stop.

They put me to the test and mocked me; * they gnashed at me with their teeth.