Lead Me in Your Righteousness
To the choirmaster: for the flutes. A Psalm of David.
1 Give ear to my words, O Lord;
consider my groaning.
2 Give attention to the sound of my cry,
jmy King and my God,
for to you do I pray.
3 O Lord, kin the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you1 and watch.
4 For you are lnot a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
6 You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
7 But I, through the mabundance of your steadfast love,
will enter your house.
I will bow down ntoward your holy temple
in the fear of you.
8 oLead me, O Lord, in your righteousness
because of my enemies;
pmake your way straight before me.
9 For there is no truth in their mouth;
their inmost self is destruction;
qtheir throat is an ropen grave;
they flatter with their tongue.
10 Make them bear their guilt, O God;
let them fall by their own counsels;
because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,
for they have rebelled against you.
11 But let all who take refuge in you srejoice;
let them ever sing for joy,
and spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may texult in you.
12 For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
you ucover him with favor as with a shield.
Great Is the Lord
Of David.
1 uContend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me!
2 Take hold of shield and buckler
and rise for my help!
3 Draw the spear and javelin1
against my pursuers!
Say to my soul,
“I am your salvation!”
4 vLet them be put to shame and dishonor
who seek after my life!
Let them be turned back and disappointed
who devise evil against me!
5 Let them be like chaff before the wind,
with the angel of the Lord driving them away!
6 Let their way be dark and slippery,
with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!
7 For without cause they hid their net for me;
without cause they wdug a pit for my life.2
8 Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it!
And let the xnet that he hid ensnare him;
let him fall into it—to his destruction!
9 Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord,
exulting in his salvation.
10 All my ybones shall say,
“O Lord, zwho is like you,
adelivering the poor
from him who is too strong for him,
the poor and needy from him who robs him?”
11 bMalicious3 witnesses rise up;
they ask me of things that I do not know.
12 They crepay me evil for good;
my soul is bereft.4
13 But I, dwhen they were sick—
I wore sackcloth;
I afflicted myself with efasting;
I prayed with head bowed5 on my chest.
14 I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;
as one who laments his mother,
I bowed down in mourning.
15 But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered;
they gathered together against me;
wretches whom I did not know
tore at me without ceasing;
16 like profane mockers at a feast,6
they gnash at me with their teeth.
17 How long, O Lord, will you look on?
Rescue me from their destruction,
my precious life from the flions!
18 I will thank you in the great congregation;
in the mighty throng I will praise you.
19 Let not those rejoice over me
who are wrongfully my foes,
and let not those gwink the eye
20 For they do not speak peace,
but against those who are quiet in the land
they devise words of deceit.
21 They jopen wide their mouths against me;
they say, k“Aha, Aha!
Our eyes have seen it!”
22 You have seen, O Lord; be not lsilent!
O Lord, mbe not far from me!
23 nAwake and rouse yourself for my vindication,
for my cause, my God and my Lord!
24 oVindicate me, O Lord, my God,
according to your righteousness,
and let them not rejoice over me!
25 Let them not say in their hearts,
“Aha, our heart’s desire!”
Let them not say, “We have swallowed him up.”
26 Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether
who rejoice at my calamity!
Let them be pclothed with shame and dishonor
who magnify themselves against me!
27 Let those who delight in my righteousness
shout for joy and be glad
and say evermore,
“Great is the Lord,
who delights in the welfare of his servant!”
28 Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness
and of your praise all the day long.
O God of Our Salvation
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. A Song.
1 Praise is due to you,1 O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
2 O you who hear prayer,
lto you shall all flesh come.
3 When iniquities prevail against me,
you matone for our transgressions.
4 nBlessed is the one you choose and bring near,
oto dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!
5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;
6 the one who by his strength established the mountains,
being pgirded with might;
7 who qstills the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the rtumult of the peoples,
8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.
9 You visit the earth and swater it;2
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
12 The tpastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
uthey shout and sing together for joy.
Let Us Sing Songs of Praise
1 Oh come, let us psing to the Lord;
let us qmake a joyful noise to the rrock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence swith thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For tthe Lord is a great God,
and a great uKing vabove all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for whe made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
xToday, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, yas at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers zput me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 aTherefore I bswore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
The Lord Surrounds His People
A Song of Ascents.
1 Those who gtrust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides forever.
2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the Lord hsurrounds his people,
from this time forth and forevermore.
3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
on the land allotted to the righteous,
lest the righteous stretch out
their hands to do wrong.
4 iDo good, O Lord, to those who are good,
and to those who are upright in their hearts!
5 But those who turn aside to their crooked ways
the Lord will lead away with evildoers!
jPeace be upon Israel!
Warning Against Adultery
1 My son, be tattentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
2 that you may keep discretion,
and uyour lips may guard knowledge.
3 vFor the lips of a forbidden1 woman drip honey,
and wher speech2 is smoother than oil,
4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 xHer feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to3 Sheol;
6 she does not ponder the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
7 And now, O sons, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
8 yKeep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house,
9 lest you give your honor to others
and your years to the merciless,
10 lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,
11 and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
12 and you say, “How I zhated adiscipline,
and my heart bdespised reproof!
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
14 I am at the brink of utter ruin
in the assembled congregation.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your csprings be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
17 Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated4 always in her love.
20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?5
21 For da man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
and he eponders6 all his paths.
22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
23 He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray.
