Why Do You Hide Yourself?
1 wWhy, O Lord, do you stand far away?
Why do you xhide yourself in times of trouble?
2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
ylet them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
and the one zgreedy for gain curses1 and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face2 the wicked does not seek him;3
all his thoughts are, a“There is no God.”
5 His ways prosper at all times;
your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7 bHis mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
cin hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9 he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
and fall by his might.
11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, dhe will never see it.”
12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
eforget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
fyou have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
gcall his wickedness to account till you find none.
16 hThe Lord is king forever and ever;
the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do ijustice to the fatherless and the joppressed,
kso that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
The Lord Is in His Holy Temple
To the choirmaster. Of David.
1 In the Lord I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
Flee like a bird to your mountain,
2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
3 if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?4
4 lThe Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord’s throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
5 The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul mhates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
6 nLet him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their ocup.
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
The Faithful Have Vanished
To the choirmaster: according to The Sheminith.5 A Psalm of David.
1 Save, O Lord, for rthe godly one is gone;
for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
2 Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;
with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.
3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
sthe tongue that makes great boasts,
4 those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?”
5 “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord;
“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
6 tThe words of the Lord are pure words,
ulike silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.
7 You, O Lord, will keep them;
you will guard us6 from this generation forever.
8 On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of man.
Paul in Ephesus
1 And it happened that while rApollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland1 country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. 2 And he said to them, “Did you sreceive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into tJohn’s baptism.” 4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the ubaptism of repentance, telling the people vto believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in2 the wname of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had xlaid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began yspeaking in tongues and zprophesying. 7 There were about twelve men in all.
8 And he entered the asynagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. 9 But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the bWay before the congregation, he cwithdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.3 10 This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.
The Sons of Sceva
11 And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that deven handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits ecame out of them. 13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the fname of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul gproclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, h“Jesus I know, iand Paul I recognize, but who are you?” 16 And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all4 of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the jname of the Lord Jesus was extolled. 18 Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. 19 And a number of those who had practiced kmagic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the lword of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.
