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Psalm 26

1  Give judgement for me, O Lord,
      for I have walked with integrity; ♦︎
   I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered.
2  Test me, O Lord, and try me; ♦︎
   examine my heart and my mind.
3  For your love is before my eyes; ♦︎
   I have walked in your truth.
4  I have not joined the company of the false, ♦︎
   nor consorted with the deceitful.
5  I hate the gathering of evildoers ♦︎
   and I will not sit down with the wicked.
6  I will wash my hands in innocence, O Lord, ♦︎
   that I may go about your altar,
7  To make heard the voice of thanksgiving ♦︎
   and tell of all your wonderful deeds.
8  Lord, I love the house of your habitation ♦︎
   and the place where your glory abides.
9  Sweep me not away with sinners, ♦︎
   nor my life with the bloodthirsty,
10  Whose hands are full of wicked schemes ♦︎
   and their right hand full of bribes.
11  As for me, I will walk with integrity; ♦︎
   redeem me, Lord, and be merciful to me.
12  My foot stands firm; ♦︎
   in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

Eliphaz Speaks: Job Has Sinned

4Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:
² ‘If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended?
   But who can keep from speaking?
³ See, you have instructed many;
   you have strengthened the weak hands.
⁴ Your words have supported those who were stumbling,
   and you have made firm the feeble knees.
⁵ But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
   it touches you, and you are dismayed.
⁶ Is not your fear of God your confidence,
   and the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷ ‘Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?
   Or where were the upright cut off?
⁸ As I have seen, those who plough iniquity
   and sow trouble reap the same.
⁹ By the breath of God they perish,
   and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
¹⁰ The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
   and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
¹¹ The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,
   and the whelps of the lioness are scattered.

¹² ‘Now a word came stealing to me,
   my ear received the whisper of it.
¹³ Amid thoughts from visions of the night,
   when deep sleep falls on mortals,
¹⁴ dread came upon me, and trembling,
   which made all my bones shake.
¹⁵ A spirit glided past my face;
   the hair of my flesh bristled.
¹⁶ It stood still,
   but I could not discern its appearance.
A form was before my eyes;
   there was silence, then I heard a voice:
¹⁷ “Can mortals be righteous before^* God?
   Can human beings be pure before^* their Maker?
¹⁸ Even in his servants he puts no trust,
   and his angels he charges with error;
¹⁹ how much more those who live in houses of clay,
   whose foundation is in the dust,
   who are crushed like a moth.
²⁰ Between morning and evening they are destroyed;
   they perish for ever without any regarding it.
²¹ Their tent-cord is plucked up within them,
   and they die devoid of wisdom.”

Life in the Spirit

8There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit^* of life in Christ Jesus has set you^* free from the law of sin and of death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,^* he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.^{* 5}For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit^* set their minds on the things of the Spirit.^{* 6}To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit^* is life and peace. ⁷For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, ⁸and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,^* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit^* is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ^* from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through^* his Spirit that dwells in you.