1 Help, Lord, for all the good people have gone! Those who trust in you have disappeared from among the people on earth.

2 Everyone lies to their neighbors. They flatter with nice talk, but they don't mean what they say.* Literally, they have “double hearts.”

3 Stop their flattery, Lord, and silence their boasts—

4 these people who say, “We will succeed through what we say; our mouths belong to us. We don't take orders from anyone!”

5 “Because of the violence the helpless have suffered, and because of the groans of the poor, I will rise up to defend them,” says the Lord. “I will give them the protection they have been longing for.”

6 What the Lord says is trustworthy, as pure as silver refined seven times in a furnace.

7 You, Lord will keep the oppressed safe; you will protect us from these kinds of people forever;

8 even though the wicked are all around us, and evil is being promoted everywhere.† “Everywhere”: literally, “among the offspring of humankind.”