Why read Psalm 12?
Psalm 12 offers words for prayer when help seems slow to come. Its repeated question, "How long?", expresses the pain of waiting before turning towards hope and thanksgiving.
You can read this psalm when its themes speak to your circumstances, or as part of your regular reading of the Psalter. This explanation draws on the text itself; the psalm is not reserved for one particular need.
The full text of Psalm 12 (6 verses), from the 2nd Kathisma of the Psalter. Its opening words — «How long, Lord, will You forget me...» — are also the psalm’s traditional “name”: our grandmothers did not say “psalm 12”, but called it by its first words.
The text of Psalm 12
1. How long, Lord, will You forget me completely? How long will You turn Your face away from me?
2. How long will I heap up thoughts in my soul, pain in my heart day and night?
3. How long will my enemy rise up against me?
4. Look upon me, hear me, Lord my God, enlighten my eyes, lest I fall asleep in death,
5. Lest my enemy say: “I have prevailed over him.” Those who trouble me will rejoice if I falter.
6. But I have hoped in Your mercy; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation; I will sing to the Lord, who has done good to me, and I will sing the name of the Lord Most High.
When Psalm 12 is read
- When the soul asks, “How long, Lord?”
- At the end of each psalm, tradition adds: «Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.».
Adjacent psalms
The numbering follows the Orthodox Psalter (Septuagint). The same psalm may have a different number in other Bible editions.
