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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.

Job: My Suffering Is without End

7‘Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
   and are not their days like the days of a labourer?
² Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
   and like labourers who look for their wages,
³ so I am allotted months of emptiness,
   and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
⁴ When I lie down I say, “When shall I rise?”
   But the night is long,
   and I am full of tossing until dawn.
⁵ My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
   my skin hardens, then breaks out again.
⁶ My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
   and come to their end without hope.^*

⁷ ‘Remember that my life is a breath;
   my eye will never again see good.
⁸ The eye that beholds me will see me no more;
   while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.
⁹ As the cloud fades and vanishes,
   so those who go down to Sheol do not come up;
¹⁰ they return no more to their houses,
   nor do their places know them any more.

¹¹ ‘Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
   I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
   I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
¹² Am I the Sea, or the Dragon,
   that you set a guard over me?
¹³ When I say, “My bed will comfort me,
   my couch will ease my complaint”,
¹⁴ then you scare me with dreams
   and terrify me with visions,
¹⁵ so that I would choose strangling
   and death rather than this body.
¹⁶ I loathe my life; I would not live for ever.
   Let me alone, for my days are a breath.
¹⁷ What are human beings, that you make so much of them,
   that you set your mind on them,
¹⁸ visit them every morning,
   test them every moment?
¹⁹ Will you not look away from me for a while,
   let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
²⁰ If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
   Why have you made me your target?
   Why have I become a burden to you?
²¹ Why do you not pardon my transgression
   and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
   you will seek me, but I shall not be.’

The Law and the Kingdom of God

14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. ¹⁵So he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.

16 ‘The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force.^{* 17}But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.

18 ‘Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.