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.1
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 strength2 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.
2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, u“I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as vGod Almighty,1 but wby my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. 4 xI also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the ygroaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as zslaves, and I have aremembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and bI will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of cjudgment. 7 dI will etake you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I fswore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’” 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, gbut hthey did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and iharsh slavery.
10 So the Lord said to Moses, 11 j“Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.” 12 But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. kHow then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” 13 But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
22 And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). 23 And they xoffered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him and ydivided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. 25 And it was the third hour1 when they crucified him. 26 And the inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” 27 And zwith him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.2 29 And those who apassed by derided him, bwagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would cdestroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.
The Death of Jesus
33 dAnd when the sixth hour3 had come, there was edarkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.4 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus fcried with a loud voice, g“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35 And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” 36 And someone ran and filled a sponge with hsour wine, put it on a reed and igave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether jElijah will come to take him down.” 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the kcurtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 lAnd when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he5 breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the mSon6 of God!”
