Psalm 64 (Exaudi, Deus)

With gracious hearing entertain
This voice, the agent of my woe:
And let my life, O God, remain
Safe in thy guard from feared foe.
Hide me where none may know
That hatefull plotts contrive;
And right to overthrow
With tumult wrongly strive.

For tongues they beare, not tongues, but swordes,
So piercing sharp they have them ground:
And words deliver, shaftes, not words,
With bitter dint soe deepe they wound.
Whose shott against the sound,
And harmlesse they direct:
In safe and fearelesse ground
Embusht without suspect.

Nay, obstinate to ill they are,
And meeting, all their talk apply
Who can most closely couch his snare;
And who, say they, shall us discry?
No guile so low doth ly,
Nor in so hidden part,
But these will sound and try,
Even out of deepest hart.

But thou, O God, from sodain bow
Death striking them a shaft shalt send:
And their own tongues to their own woe
Shall all their wounding sharpnes bend.
Thus wounded shall they end,
Thus ending shall they make
Each mortall eye attend,
Each eye attending quake.

Not one, I say, but shall behold
This worke of God, which he agayn
Shall, as he can in wordes unfold,
If yet his feare he entertain.
In whom doth tymelesse raign
The just shall joy and hope:
The hartes uprightly playn
Shall have their vaunting scope.