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Psalm 55

Complaint about a Friend’s Treachery

To the leader: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.
¹ Give ear to my prayer, O God;
   do not hide yourself from my supplication.
² Attend to me, and answer me;
   I am troubled in my complaint.
I am distraught ³by the noise of the enemy,
   because of the clamour of the wicked.
For they bring^* trouble upon me,
   and in anger they cherish enmity against me.

⁴ My heart is in anguish within me,
   the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
⁵ Fear and trembling come upon me,
   and horror overwhelms me.
⁶ And I say, ‘O that I had wings like a dove!
   I would fly away and be at rest;
⁷ truly, I would flee far away;
   I would lodge in the wilderness;
          Selah
⁸ I would hurry to find a shelter for myself
   from the raging wind and tempest.’

⁹ Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech;
   for I see violence and strife in the city.
¹⁰ Day and night they go around it
   on its walls,
and iniquity and trouble are within it;
¹¹   ruin is in its midst;
oppression and fraud
   do not depart from its market-place.

¹² It is not enemies who taunt me—
   I could bear that;
it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—
   I could hide from them.
¹³ But it is you, my equal,
   my companion, my familiar friend,
¹⁴ with whom I kept pleasant company;
   we walked in the house of God with the throng.
¹⁵ Let death come upon them;
   let them go down alive to Sheol;
   for evil is in their homes and in their hearts.