And in Your loving devotion, cut off my enemies. Destroy all who afflict me, for I am Your servant.
Parallel translations
- WEB In your loving kindness, cut off my enemies, and destroy all those who afflict my soul, For I am your servant.
- KJV And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant.
- NKJV In Your mercy cut off my enemies, And destroy all those who afflict my soul; For I am Your servant.
- NASB And in Your faithfulness, destroy my enemies, And eliminate all those who attack my soul, For I am Your servant.
- NLT In your unfailing love, silence all my enemies and destroy all my foes, for I am your servant.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David asks God in His loving kindness to cut off his enemies, for he is God's servant. It pairs a plea for justice with covenant belonging.
Overview
David appeals to God's covenant love (lovingkindness) even while asking for judgment on those who afflict his soul, identifying himself as God's servant. The request leaves vengeance to God rather than to his own hand. Such imprecations are taken up by the saints who long for God's justice while, in Christ, also being taught to love and pray for enemies (Romans 12:19).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 54:5He will reward my enemies with evil. In Your faithfulness, destroy them.
- Ps 116:16Truly, O LORD, I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have broken my bonds.
- Ps 119:94I am Yours; save me, for I have sought Your precepts.
- Ps 52:5Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin; He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
- Ps 55:23But You, O God, will bring them down to the Pit of destruction; men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days. But I will trust in You.
- 1 Sam 26:10David added, “As surely as the LORD lives, the LORD Himself will strike him down; either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.
- Ps 136:15–20but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea. His loving devotion endures forever.
- 1 Sam 24:12–15May the LORD judge between you and me, and may the LORD take vengeance on you, but my hand will never be against you.
- 1 Sam 25:29And should someone pursue you and seek your life, then the life of my lord will be bound securely by the LORD your God in the bundle of the living. But He shall fling away the lives of your enemies like stones from a sling.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 143:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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