Psalms 12
What Happens in This Chapter
David asks God for help because honest, faithful people seem to have disappeared. Everyone around him lies, flatters, and brags that no one can stop their words. God answers that He will rise up to protect poor and hurting people, and David says God's own words are pure, like silver melted clean seven times. The psalm ends with wicked people walking about freely while the worst of them are honored.
Plain reading written for kids. Short sentences, everyday words, one idea at a time.
Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
1Help me, LORD! The good people are gone. I cannot find anyone left who is faithful and true.
2They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
2Everyone tells lies to the person next to them. They say sweet words, but they mean something else inside.
"Vanity" here means empty, untrue talk. A "double heart" means saying one thing while thinking another.
3The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:
3May the LORD silence all the lips that flatter. May He silence every tongue that brags.
4Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
4They say, "Our words will win. Our lips belong to us. No one is our boss."
5For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.
5The LORD says, "Poor people are being hurt. People in need are groaning. Now I will stand up. I will bring them to a safe place, away from the one who sneers at them."
The old wording says "him that puffeth at him." It means a person who sneers at or looks down on the poor.
6The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
6The words of the LORD are pure and clean. They are like silver melted in a clay furnace and cleaned seven times.
A "furnace of earth" is an oven made of clay. It gets hot enough to melt silver and burn away the dirt in it.
7Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
7LORD, You will keep Your people safe. You will guard them from these people forever.
8The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
8Wicked people walk all around us. That happens when the worst people are given honor.
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