Why read Psalm 140?
Psalm 140 is a prayer for evening worship and care over your words and heart. Its image of prayer rising like incense is joined to the request to avoid harmful speech and evil inclinations.
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.
Psalm 140 — “Lord, I cried to You, hear me; pay...” — is the prayer through which the Psalmist places the experience of an entire hour of life before God. It belongs to the 19th Kathisma and has 10 verses, which you will find in full below.
The text of Psalm 140
1. Lord, I cried to You, hear me; pay heed to the voice of my prayer when I cry to You.
2. Let my prayer be directed like incense before You; the lifting of my hands as an evening sacrifice.
3. Set, Lord, a guard over my mouth and an enclosing door around my lips.
4. Do not turn my heart towards deceitful words to excuse my sins; and among the people who work lawlessness, I shall not join their chosen ones.
5. The righteous man will chastise me with mercy and rebuke me, but let the oil of sinners not anoint my head; for my prayer too is against their desires.
6. Let their judges fall from the rock. My words will be heard, for they have become sweet,
7. Like a furrow of earth they were torn upon the earth; their bones were scattered beside hell.
8. For towards You, Lord, Lord, are my eyes; in You I hoped, do not take my soul.
9. Guard me from the snare they laid for me and from the stumbling blocks of those who work lawlessness.
10. Sinners will fall into their own net; I am kept safe until I pass through.
When Psalm 140 is read
- in the evening — opens Vespers (“Lord, I cried”).
- 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
Read also
The numbering follows the Orthodox Psalter (Septuagint). The same psalm may have a different number in other Bible editions.
