When it is said
Pray it when someone is spreading lies about you, at work, at school or in your own family.
Its second verse makes a one-line prayer of its own, for the moment you hear what is being said.
Where it comes from
No author known
A Song of Ascents
This psalm is the first of 15 headed “A Song of Ascents”, which run from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134. Its heading names no author. The Orthodox Church reads the Greek Bible, which gives it the same heading and counts it as Psalm 119.
The Hebrew Psalms with the JPS English, on Mechon Mamre; Brenton’s English Septuagint, on eBible
Read at Vespers
The Orthodox Church divides the Psalter into 20 sections for reading, and the 18th is made up of the Songs of Ascents. That section is read at Vespers every weekday evening through most of the autumn and winter and in most weeks of Lent. From the week after Easter until September it is read on Friday evenings.
Kathisma, Wikipedia; Kathisma, OrthodoxWiki (the order of the Typicon)
What the words mean
Without a cause
The Greek Bible ends the psalm a little differently: “I was peaceable among them that hated peace; when I spoke to them, they warred against me without a cause.” The words “without a cause” are not in the Hebrew. The plain English follows the Hebrew and leaves them out.
The Scripture in it
In my distress I cried to the LORD, and He answered me. Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.
Too long have I dwelt among those who hate peace. I am in favor of peace; but when I speak, they want war.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.