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 leftunlooked 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 furyagainst my furious enemies.Wake up, God. My accusers have packedthe 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.
11-13. 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 havingthe baby—a Lie-Baby!
15-16. See that man shoveling day after day,digging, then concealing, his man-trapdown 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.