Psalm 55

¹Give hearing to my prayer, O God; and let not your ear be shut against my request.

²Give thought to me, and let my prayer be answered: I have been made low in sorrow;

³I am troubled because of the voice of the cruel ones, because of the loud cry of the evil-doers; for they put a weight of evil on me, and they are cruel in their hate for me.

⁴My heart is deeply wounded, and the fear of death has come on me.

⁵Fear and shaking have come over me, with deep fear I am covered.

⁶And I said, If only I had wings like a dove! for then I would go in flight from here and be at rest.

⁷I would go wandering far away, living in the waste land. (Selah.)

⁸I would quickly take cover from the driving storm and from the violent wind.

⁹Send destruction on them, O Lord, make a division of tongues among them: for I have seen fighting and violent acts in the town.

¹⁰By day and night they go round the town, on the walls; trouble and sorrow are in the heart of it.

¹¹Evil is there; cruel rule and deceit are ever in the streets.

¹²For it was not my hater who said evil of me; that would have been no grief to me; it was not one outside the number of my friends who made himself strong against me, or I would have kept myself from him in a secret place;

¹³But it was you, my equal, my guide, my well-loved friend.