The cords of Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead) surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.

In my distress [when I seemed surrounded] I called upon the Lord
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry for help came before Him, into His very ears.

He bowed the heavens also and came down;
And thick darkness was under His feet.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
But the Lord was my support.

Foreigners lose heart,
And come trembling out of their strongholds.

When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh,
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.

For, lo, the kings assembled themselves,
They [came and] passed by together.

He has redeemed my life in peace from the battle that was against me,
For there were many against me.

And He let them fall in the midst of their camp,
Around their tents.

The wrath of God rose against them
And killed some of the strongest of them,
And subdued the choice young men of Israel.

His priests [Hophni and Phinehas] fell by the sword,
And His widows could not weep.

Until the time that his word [of prophecy regarding his brothers] came true,
The word of the Lord tested and refined him.

Israel also came into Egypt;
Thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

He spoke, and there came swarms of flies
And gnats in all their territory.

He spoke, and the [migratory] locusts came,
And the young locusts, even without number,

They envied Moses in the camp,
And Aaron [the high priest], the holy one of the Lord,

He also loved cursing, and it came [back] to him;
He did not delight in blessing, so it was far from him.

When Israel came out of Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,

It is like the precious oil [of consecration] poured on the head,
Coming down on the beard,
Even the beard of Aaron,
Coming down upon the edge of his [priestly] robes [consecrating the whole body].