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Psalm 10
The Message
Psalm 10
The Message
10 1-2 God, are you avoiding me?
Where are you when I need you?
Full of hot air, the wicked
are hot on the trail of the poor.
Trip them up, tangle them up
in their fine-tuned plots.
3-4 The wicked are windbags,
the swindlers have foul breath.
The wicked snub God,
their noses stuck high in the air.
Their graffiti are scrawled on the walls:
“Catch us if you can!” “God is dead.”
5-6 They care nothing for what you think;
if you get in their way, they blow you off.
They live (they think) a charmed life:
“We can’t go wrong. This is our lucky year!”
7-8 They carry a mouthful of spells,
their tongues spit venom like adders.
They hide behind ordinary people,
then pounce on their victims.
9 They mark the luckless,
then wait like a hunter in a blind;
When the poor wretch wanders too close,
they stab him in the back.
10-11 The hapless fool is kicked to the ground,
the unlucky victim is brutally axed.
He thinks God has dumped him,
he’s sure that God is indifferent to his plight.
12-13 Time to get up, God—get moving.
The luckless think they’re Godforsaken.
They wonder why the wicked scorn God
and get away with it,
Why the wicked are so cocksure
they’ll never come up for audit.
14 But you know all about it—
the contempt, the abuse.
I dare to believe that the luckless
will get lucky someday in you.
You won’t let them down:
orphans won’t be orphans forever.
15-16 Break the wicked right arms,
break all the evil left arms.
Search and destroy
every sign of crime.
God’s grace and order wins;
godlessness loses.
17-18 The victim’s faint pulse picks up;
the hearts of the hopeless pump red blood
as you put your ear to their lips.
Orphans get parents,
the homeless get homes.
The reign of terror is over,
the rule of the gang lords is ended.
Psalm 10
New International Version
Psalm 10
New International Version
Psalm 10[a]
2 In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,(C)
who are caught in the schemes he devises.
3 He boasts(D) about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.(E)
4 In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.(F)
5 His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by[b] him;
he sneers at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”(G)
7 His mouth is full(H) of lies and threats;(I)
trouble and evil are under his tongue.(J)
8 He lies in wait(K) near the villages;
from ambush he murders the innocent.(L)
His eyes watch in secret for his victims;
9 like a lion in cover he lies in wait.
He lies in wait to catch the helpless;(M)
he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.(N)
10 His victims are crushed,(O) they collapse;
they fall under his strength.
11 He says to himself, “God will never notice;(P)
he covers his face and never sees.”(Q)
12 Arise,(R) Lord! Lift up your hand,(S) O God.
Do not forget the helpless.(T)
13 Why does the wicked man revile God?(U)
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?(V)
14 But you, God, see the trouble(W) of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;(X)
you are the helper(Y) of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked man;(Z)
call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
that would not otherwise be found out.
16 The Lord is King for ever and ever;(AA)
the nations(AB) will perish from his land.
17 You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;(AC)
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,(AD)
18 defending the fatherless(AE) and the oppressed,(AF)
so that mere earthly mortals
will never again strike terror.
Footnotes
- Psalm 10:1 Psalms 9 and 10 may originally have been a single acrostic poem in which alternating lines began with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In the Septuagint they constitute one psalm.
- Psalm 10:5 See Septuagint; Hebrew / they are haughty, and your laws are far from
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
New International Version (NIV) 
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NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.