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Psalm 3

1  Lord, how many are my adversaries; ♦︎
   many are they who rise up against me.
2  Many are they who say to my soul, ♦︎
   ‘There is no help for you in your God.’
3  But you, Lord, are a shield about me; ♦︎
   you are my glory, and the lifter up of my head.
4  When I cry aloud to the Lord, ♦︎
   he will answer me from his holy hill;
5  I lie down and sleep and rise again, ♦︎
   because the Lord sustains me.
6  I will not be afraid of hordes of the peoples ♦︎
   that have set themselves against me all around.
7  Rise up, O Lord, and deliver me, O my God, ♦︎
   for you strike all my enemies on the cheek
      and break the teeth of the wicked.
8  Salvation belongs to the Lord: ♦︎
   may your blessing be upon your people.

⁵ Look at the nations, and see!
   Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days
   that you would not believe if you were told.
⁶ For I am rousing the Chaldeans,
   that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth
   to seize dwellings not their own.
⁷ Dread and fearsome are they;
   their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,
   more menacing than wolves at dusk;
   their horses charge.
Their horsemen come from far away;
   they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
⁹ They all come for violence,
   with faces pressing^* forward;
   they gather captives like sand.
¹⁰ At kings they scoff,
   and of rulers they make sport.
They laugh at every fortress,
   and heap up earth to take it.
¹¹ Then they sweep by like the wind;
   they transgress and become guilty;
   their own might is their god!

¹² Are you not from of old,
   O Lord my God, my Holy One?
   You^* shall not die.
O Lord, you have marked them for judgement;
   and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
¹³ Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
   and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous,
   and are silent when the wicked swallow
   those more righteous than they?
¹⁴ You have made people like the fish of the sea,
   like crawling things that have no ruler.

¹⁵ The enemy^* brings all of them up with a hook;
   he drags them out with his net,
he gathers them in his seine;
   so he rejoices and exults.
¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net
   and makes offerings to his seine;
for by them his portion is lavish,
   and his food is rich.
¹⁷ Is he then to keep on emptying his net,
   and destroying nations without mercy?

Faith and Wisdom

2 My brothers and sisters,^* whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, ³because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; ⁴and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. ⁶But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; ^{7, 8}for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Poverty and Riches

9 Let the believer^* who is lowly boast in being raised up, ¹⁰and the rich in being brought low, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field. ¹¹For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.