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Psalm 13

1  How long will you forget me, O Lord; for ever? ♦︎
   How long will you hide your face from me?
2  How long shall I have anguish in my soul
      and grief in my heart, day after day? ♦︎
   How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
3  Look upon me and answer, O Lord my God; ♦︎
   lighten my eyes, lest I sleep in death;
4  Lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed against him,’ ♦︎
   and my foes rejoice that I have fallen.
5  But I put my trust in your steadfast love; ♦︎
   my heart will rejoice in your salvation.
6  I will sing to the Lord, ♦︎
   for he has dealt so bountifully with me.

Sorrow for a Doomed Nation

¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!
   Oh, the walls of my heart!
My heart is beating wildly;
   I cannot keep silent;
for I^* hear the sound of the trumpet,
   the alarm of war.
²⁰ Disaster overtakes disaster,
   the whole land is laid waste.
Suddenly my tents are destroyed,
   my curtains in a moment.
²¹ How long must I see the standard,
   and hear the sound of the trumpet?
²² ‘For my people are foolish,
   they do not know me;
they are stupid children,
   they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil,
   but do not know how to do good.’

²³ I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void;
   and to the heavens, and they had no light.
²⁴ I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking,
   and all the hills moved to and fro.
²⁵ I looked, and lo, there was no one at all,
   and all the birds of the air had fled.
²⁶ I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,
   and all its cities were laid in ruins
   before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

27 For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.
²⁸ Because of this the earth shall mourn,
   and the heavens above grow black;
for I have spoken, I have purposed;
   I have not relented nor will I turn back.

²⁹ At the noise of horseman and archer
   every town takes to flight;
they enter thickets; they climb among rocks;
   all the towns are forsaken,
   and no one lives in them.
³⁰ And you, O desolate one,
what do you mean that you dress in crimson,
   that you deck yourself with ornaments of gold,
   that you enlarge your eyes with paint?
In vain you beautify yourself.
   Your lovers despise you;
   they seek your life.
³¹ For I heard a cry as of a woman in labour,
   anguish as of one bringing forth her first child,
the cry of daughter Zion gasping for breath,
   stretching out her hands,
‘Woe is me! I am fainting before killers!’

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

5After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew^* Beth-zatha,^* which has five porticoes. ³In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed.^{* 5}One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ ⁷The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ ⁸Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ ⁹At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. ¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ ¹¹But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’ ¹²They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ ¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in^* the crowd that was there. ¹⁴Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ ¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. ¹⁶Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. ¹⁷But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ ¹⁸For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.