World English Bible
- For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. In you, LORD, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness.
- Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me.
- For you are my rock and my fortress, therefore for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.
- Pluck me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my stronghold.
- Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, LORD, God of truth.
- I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in the LORD.
- I will be glad and rejoice in your loving kindness, for you have seen my affliction. You have known my soul in adversities.
- You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a large place.
- Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.
- For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
- Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.
- I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.
- For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me, they plot to take away my life.
- But I trust in you, LORD. I said, “You are my God.”
- My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.
- Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.
- Let me not be disappointed, LORD, for I have called on you. Let the wicked be disappointed. Let them be silent in Sheol.
- Let the lying lips be mute, which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.
- Oh how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have worked for those who take refuge in you, before the sons of men!
- In the shelter of your presence you will hide them from the plotting of man. You will keep them secretly in a dwelling away from the strife of tongues.
- Praise be to the LORD, for he has shown me his marvelous loving kindness in a strong city.
- As for me, I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before your eyes.” Nevertheless you heard the voice of my petitions when I cried to you.
- Oh love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful, and fully recompenses him who behaves arrogantly.
- Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the LORD.
Psalm 31 begins where real faith often begins: not with calm, but with urgency. “In you, LORD, I have taken refuge” (New International Version). The Hebrew plea “let me never be put to shame” is not mainly private guilt; it is public collapse—being exposed, mocked, treated as evidence that trusting God was foolish. In an honor-shame world, shame is a kind of social death. David is asking God to make trust credible in the eyes of watchers.
David piles up images: rock, fortress, shelter, stronghold. This is not poetic excess; it is a soul trying to find enough words to hold what fear cannot. Yet the most surprising refuge comes later: “You hide them in the shelter of your presence” (verse 20). Literally, the hiding place of your face (seter panekha). God does not merely give gifts; He gives access. The safest place is not circumstance but communion.
Western readers often imagine “presence” as a feeling. In Scripture it is closer to audience with the King. To be kept near God’s “face” is to be placed where accusations cannot finally land.
“I am forgotten as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery” (verse 12). In the land of Israel, potsherds are everywhere—ancient trash carpeting the ground. Broken clay was cheap, replaceable, unmissed. David describes not only suffering, but disposability.
And then comes the hinge of the psalm: “But I trust in you, LORD” (verse 14). Trust here is not optimistic mood-management. It is defiance against the lie of being throwaway.
“Into your hands I commit my spirit” (verse 5). The verb has the feel of entrusting valuables for safekeeping. Jesus takes these words on His lips (Luke 23:46), not as a last sigh but as a deliberate transfer: Father, hold what they cannot steal.
Then David adds a second surrender: “My times are in your hands” (verse 15). Not just the end of life, but its seasons—delays, reversals, hidden years. This is discipleship at its deepest: consenting to be kept on God’s calendar.
Augustine read many psalms as the voice of Christ and His body together. Psalm 31 becomes a shared prayer: Christ commits His spirit; the church learns to commit its times.
Song to pray with: “My Times Are in Thy Hand” (hymn) or the Taizé chant “Into Your Hands.”
Lord, I confess how quickly I measure Your care by my reputation, comfort, and control. Hide me in the shelter of Your face. When I feel like a broken shard, remind me that You redeem what the world discards. I place my spirit in Your hands—and my times as well. Make me strong to wait, and gentle to trust. In Jesus Christ, who prayed this psalm in the dark and rose into Your light, amen.