Give the King Your Justice
zOf Solomon.
1 Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!
2 aMay he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!
3 Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!
4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the children of the needy,
and crush the oppressor!
5 May they fear you1 bwhile the sun endures,
and as long as the moon, cthroughout all generations!
6 May he be dlike rain that falls on the mown grass,
like showers that water the earth!
7 In his days may ethe righteous flourish,
and peace abound, till the moon be no more!
8 fMay he have dominion gfrom sea to sea,
and hfrom the River2 to the iends of the earth!
9 May desert tribes bow down before him,
and his enemies jlick the dust!
10 May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands
render him tribute;
may the kkings of Sheba and Seba
bring gifts!
11 May all kings fall down before him,
all nations serve him!
12 lFor he mdelivers the needy when he calls,
the poor and him who has nno helper.
13 He has pity on the weak and the needy,
and osaves the lives of the needy.
14 From oppression and violence he redeems their life,
and pprecious is their blood in his sight.
15 Long may he live;
may qgold of Sheba be given to him!
May prayer be made for him continually,
and blessings invoked for him all the day!
16 May there be abundance of grain in the land;
on the tops of the mountains may it wave;
may its fruit be like Lebanon;
and may people blossom in the cities
rlike the grass of the field!
17 May his name endure forever,
his fame continue as long as the sun!
sMay people be blessed in him,
all nations call him blessed!
18 tBlessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
who alone does uwondrous things.
19 vBlessed be his glorious name forever;
may wthe whole earth be filled with his glory!
xAmen and Amen!
20 The yprayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.
Book Three
God Is My Strength and Portion Forever
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are zpure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly aslipped.
3 bFor I was cenvious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them das a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through efatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.3
11 And they say, f“How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands gin innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20 hLike a dream when one iawakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant;
I was jlike a beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your kcounsel,
and afterward you will lreceive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength4 of my heart and mmy portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may ntell of all your works.
God’s Sovereign Choice
1 sI am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that tI have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were uaccursed and cut off from Christ vfor the sake of my brothers,1 my kinsmen waccording to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the xadoption, the yglory, zthe acovenants, bthe cgiving of the law, the dworship, and the epromises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and ffrom their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God gover all, blessed forever. Amen.
6 hBut it is not as though the word of God has failed. For inot all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but j“Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the kchildren of the promise are lcounted as offspring. 9 For this is what the promise said: m“About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also nwhen Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s opurpose of pelection might continue, qnot because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, r“The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, s“Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14 tWhat shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, u“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
