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Psalm 73

1  Truly, God is loving to Israel, ♦︎
   to those who are pure in heart.
2  Nevertheless, my feet were almost gone; ♦︎
   my steps had well-nigh slipped.
3  For I was envious of the proud; ♦︎
   I saw the wicked in such prosperity;
4  For they suffer no pains ♦︎
   and their bodies are sleek and sound;
5  They come to no misfortune like other folk; ♦︎
   nor are they plagued as others are;
6  Therefore pride is their necklace ♦︎
   and violence wraps them like a cloak.
7  Their iniquity comes from within; ♦︎
   the conceits of their hearts overflow.
8  They scoff, and speak only of evil; ♦︎
   they talk of oppression from on high.
9  They set their mouth against the heavens, ♦︎
   and their tongue ranges round the earth;
10  And so the people turn to them ♦︎
   and find in them no fault.
11  They say, ‘How should God know? ♦︎
   Is there knowledge in the Most High?’
12  Behold, these are the wicked; ♦︎
   ever at ease, they increase their wealth.
13  Is it in vain that I cleansed my heart ♦︎
   and washed my hands in innocence?
14  All day long have I been stricken ♦︎
   and chastened every morning.
15  If I had said, ‘I will speak as they do,’ ♦︎
   I should have betrayed the generation of your children.
16  Then thought I to understand this, ♦︎
   but it was too hard for me,
17  Until I entered the sanctuary of God ♦︎
   and understood the end of the wicked:
18  How you set them in slippery places; ♦︎
   you cast them down to destruction.
19  How suddenly do they come to destruction, ♦︎
   perish and come to a fearful end!
20  As with a dream when one awakes, ♦︎
   so, Lord, when you arise you will despise their image.

9 Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid on Lehi. ¹⁰The men of Judah said, ‘Why have you come up against us?’ They said, ‘We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.’ ¹¹Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, ‘Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?’ He replied, ‘As they did to me, so I have done to them.’ ¹²They said to him, ‘We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.’ Samson answered them, ‘Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.’ ¹³They said to him, ‘No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.’ So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. ¹⁵Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men. ¹⁶And Samson said,
‘With the jawbone of a donkey,
   heaps upon heaps,
with the jawbone of a donkey
   I have slain a thousand men.’
¹⁷When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and that place was called Ramath-lehi.^*

18 By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, ‘You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?’ ¹⁹So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore,^* which is at Lehi to this day. ²⁰And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.

Jesus Cures a Boy with a Demon

14 When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, ¹⁵and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. ¹⁶And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.’ ¹⁷Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.’ ¹⁸And Jesus rebuked the demon,^* and it^* came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. ¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ ²⁰He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a^* mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’^*