Cast Your Burden on the Lord

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil1 of David.

¹Give ear to my prayer, O God,

and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!

²Attend to me, and answer me;

I am restless in my complaint and I moan,

³because of the noise of the enemy,

because of the oppression of the wicked.

For they drop trouble upon me,

and in anger they bear a grudge against me.

⁴My heart is in anguish within me;

the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

⁵Fear and trembling come upon me,

and horror overwhelms me.

⁶And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest;

⁷yes, I would wander far away;

I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah

⁸I would hurry to find a shelter

from the raging wind and tempest.”

⁹Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues;

for I see violence and strife in the city.

¹⁰Day and night they go around it

on its walls,

and iniquity and trouble are within it;

¹¹ruin is in its midst;

oppression and fraud

do not depart from its marketplace.

¹²For it is not an enemy who taunts me—

then I could bear it;

it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—

then I could hide from him.

¹³But it is you, a man, my equal,

my companion, my familiar friend.

¹⁴We used to take sweet counsel together;

within God's house we walked in the throng.

¹⁵Let death steal over them;

let them go down to Sheol alive;

for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.

¹⁶But I call to God,

and the Lord will save me.

¹⁷Evening and morning and at noon

I utter my complaint and moan,

and he hears my voice.

¹⁸He redeems my soul in safety

from the battle that I wage,

for many are arrayed against me.

¹⁹God will give ear and humble them,

he who is enthroned from of old, Selah

because they do not change

and do not fear God.

²⁰My companion2 stretched out his hand against his friends;

he violated his covenant.

²¹His speech was smooth as butter,

yet war was in his heart;

his words were softer than oil,

yet they were drawn swords.

²²Cast your burden on the Lord,

and he will sustain you;

he will never permit

the righteous to be moved.

²³But you, O God, will cast them down

into the pit of destruction;

men of blood and treachery

shall not live out half their days.

But I will trust in you.