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Psalm 28

1  To you I call, O Lord my rock;
      be not deaf to my cry, ♦︎
   lest, if you do not hear me,
      I become like those who go down to the Pit.
2  Hear the voice of my prayer when I cry out to you, ♦︎
   when I lift up my hands to your holy of holies.
3  Do not snatch me away with the wicked,
      with the evildoers, ♦︎
   who speak peaceably with their neighbours,
      while malice is in their hearts.
4  Repay them according to their deeds ♦︎
   and according to the wickedness of their devices.
5  Reward them according to the work of their hands ♦︎
   and pay them their just deserts.
6  They take no heed of the Lord’s doings,
      nor of the works of his hands; ♦︎
   therefore shall he break them down
      and not build them up.
7  Blessed be the Lord, ♦︎
   for he has heard the voice of my prayer.
8  The Lord is my strength and my shield; ♦︎
   my heart has trusted in him and I am helped;
9  Therefore my heart dances for joy ♦︎
   and in my song will I praise him.
10  The Lord is the strength of his people, ♦︎
   a safe refuge for his anointed.
11  Save your people and bless your inheritance; ♦︎
   shepherd them and carry them for ever.

⁹ Therefore justice is far from us,
   and righteousness does not reach us;
we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness;
   and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
¹⁰ We grope like the blind along a wall,
   groping like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
   among the vigorous^* as though we were dead.
¹¹ We all growl like bears;
   like doves we moan mournfully.
We wait for justice, but there is none;
   for salvation, but it is far from us.
¹² For our transgressions before you are many,
   and our sins testify against us.
Our transgressions indeed are with us,
   and we know our iniquities:
¹³ transgressing, and denying the Lord,
   and turning away from following our God,
talking oppression and revolt,
   conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.
¹⁴ Justice is turned back,
   and righteousness stands at a distance;
for truth stumbles in the public square,
   and uprightness cannot enter.
¹⁵ Truth is lacking,
   and whoever turns from evil is despoiled.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
   that there was no justice.
¹⁶ He saw that there was no one,
   and was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm brought him victory,
   and his righteousness upheld him.
¹⁷ He put on righteousness like a breastplate,
   and a helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
   and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle.
¹⁸ According to their deeds, so will he repay;
   wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies;
   to the coastlands he will render requital.
¹⁹ So those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord,
   and those in the east, his glory;
for he will come like a pent-up stream
   that the wind of the Lord drives on.

The Living Stone and a Chosen People

2Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. ²Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— ³if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built^* into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶For it stands in scripture:
‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
   a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him^* will not be put to shame.’
⁷To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
‘The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the very head of the corner’,
⁸and
‘A stone that makes them stumble,
   and a rock that makes them fall.’
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,^* in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
¹⁰ Once you were not a people,
   but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
   but now you have received mercy.