Saturday Psalm #38

O Adonai, please don’t rebuke me; go easy on me.
Don’t I have enough people taking shots at me? Aren’t there enough knives sticking out of my back?
How will I bear it if you turn your face from me, or punish me for my sins?
I acknowledge my sins; they add up like a college student’s credit card balance.
They threaten to destroy me like a skyscraper being demolished.
I can’t stand my own smell; I’m sick of my own foolishness and stubbornness.
I hate my sin; I bow in repentance and press my face to the ground in mourning.
I am corrupt from the inside out, and there is nothing good in me.
I am weak and pathetic; I cry out because of my filthiness.

But Lord, you know my heart’s longing; you hear my soul’s cry.
Bend your ear to my cries; look upon my trembling form.
My loved ones don’t even know how I’m feeling;
my family all have their own things going, they can’t identify with what I’m going through.
My enemies lay snares for me; my detractors continue to accuse me,
and use their imaginations to suspect me of all sorts of things.

Even if I heard their suspicions, I have nothing to say to them.
As innocent as I am of their accusations, I’m guilty of a lot worse.
But I put my hope in you, Lord; I will let you answer for me.
Save me from making my enemies into prophets;
deliver me from fulfilling their evil expectations.
Apart from you, I am desolate.

I confess my sin and my sinfulness; I repent of all my wrongdoing.
My enemies—natural and supernatural—go on multiplying.
I can’t make everyone like me, much less agree with me.
I can only try, by your grace, to make sure they oppose me wrongfully, because I do what is good.
So please don’t abandon me, Lord.
Don’t be distant.
Come quickly to help me, my Savior, Adonai.