The Book of Psalms

⭑ Catholic Public Domain Version 2009 ⭑

- Chapter 57 -

To you my soul takes refuge

(1 Samuel 22:1-5; Psalm 108:1-13; Psalm 142:1-7)

Unto the end. May you not destroy. Of David, with the inscription of a title, when he fled from Saul into a cave.(a)

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me. For my soul trusts in you. And I will hope in the shadow of your wings, until iniquity passes away.

I will cry out to God Most High, to God who has been kind to me.

He sent from heaven and freed me. He has surrendered into disgrace those who trampled me. God has sent his mercy and his truth.

And he has rescued my soul from the midst of the young lions. I slept troubled. The sons of men: their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword.

Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth.

They prepared a snare for my feet, and they bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, yet they have fallen into it.

My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared. I will sing, and I will compose a psalm.(b)

Rise up, my glory. Rise up, psaltery and harp. I will arise in early morning.

I will confess to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will compose a psalm to you among the nations.

For your mercy has been magnified, even to the heavens, and your truth, even to the clouds.

Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth.

Footnotes

(a)56:1 Destroy not:Suffer me not to be destroyed.(Challoner)

(b)56:8 Again, ‘psalmum dicam’ could be translated as ‘recite a psalm.’ But, after all the great and merciful things that this and other psalms say that God has done, is the response of the Psalmist merely to recite a psalm. Is not the one who wrote this psalm a composer of psalms? So then, his response would not be merely to recite a memorized psalm, but to compose one. Psalms were composed in ancient times, not so much by sitting down and writing, but by speaking the psalm first, and writing it later.(Conte)