- In speechless silence do not hold,
- O God thy tongue always:
- O God even thou I say that art
- the God of all my praise.
-
- 2 The wicked mouth and guileful lips,
- on me disclosed be:
- And they with false and lying tongue,
- have spoken unto me.
-
- 3 They did beset me round about,
- with words of hateful spite:
- Without all cause of my dessert,
- against me they did fight.
-
- 4 For my good will they were my foes,
- but then ‘gan I to pray:
- My good with ill, my friendliness
- with hate they did repay.
-
- 5 Set thou the wicked over him,
- to have the upper hand:
- At his right hand eke suffer thou,
- his hateful foe to stand.
-
- 6 When he is judged, let him then
- condemned be therein:
-
- 7 And let the prayer that he makes,
- be turned into sin.
-
- 8 Few be his days, his charge also,
- let thou another take:
-
- 9 His children let be fatherless,
- his wife a widow make.
-
- 10 Let his offsprings be vagabonds,
- to beg and seek their bread:
- Wandering out of the wonted place,
- where erst they have been fed.
-
- 11 Let covetous extortioners
- catch all his goods and store:
- And let the strangers spoil the fruit
- of his toil before.
-
- 12 Let there be none to pity him,
- let there be none at all:
- That on his children fatherless,
- will let their mercy fall.