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Psalms 10
Lamed
1 Yahweh, why do you stand aside, why hide from us now the times are hard?
2 The poor man is devoured by the pride of the wicked, he is caught in the wiles that the other has devised.
(Mem)
3 The evil man boasts of his soul’s desires, the grasping man blasphemes[*a], the wicked spurns Yahweh.
(Nun)
4 ‘His anger is up there, he will not make me pay! There is no God!’ This is the way his mind works.
5 At every moment his course is assured, your rulings are too lofty for his notice; his rivals? He sneers at them all.
6 ‘Nothing can shake me’ he assures himself. Himself untouched by disaster,
7 he curses others.
spite and iniquity are under his tongue;
8 there in the reeds he lies in ambush to kill the innocent where no one can see.
Peering and prying for the out-of-luck,
9 lurking unseen like a lion in his hide, lurking to capture the poor man, the poor man seized, he drags him away in his net.
(Sade)
10 Questing of eye, he stoops, he crouches, and the luckless wretch falls into his power
11 as he thinks to himself, ‘God forgets, he hides his face, he does not see at all’.
Qoph
12 Rise, Yahweh, God raise your hand, do not forget the poor!
13 Why does the wicked man spurn God, assuring himself, ‘He will not make me pay’?
Resh
14 You yourself have seen the distress and the grief, you watch and then take them into your hands; the luckless man commits himself to you, you, the orphan’s certain help.
Shin
15 Break the power of the wicked, of the evil man, seek out his wickedness till there is none to be found!
16 Yahweh is king for ever and ever, the pagans are doomed to vanish from his country.
Tau
17 Yahweh, you listen to the wants of the humble, you bring strength to their hearts, you grant them a hearing,
18 judging in favour of the orphaned and exploited, so that earthborn man may strike fear no longer.