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Psalm 28

1  To you I call, O Lord my rock;
      be not deaf to my cry, ♦︎
   lest, if you do not hear me,
      I become like those who go down to the Pit.
2  Hear the voice of my prayer when I cry out to you, ♦︎
   when I lift up my hands to your holy of holies.
3  Do not snatch me away with the wicked,
      with the evildoers, ♦︎
   who speak peaceably with their neighbours,
      while malice is in their hearts.
4  Repay them according to their deeds ♦︎
   and according to the wickedness of their devices.
5  Reward them according to the work of their hands ♦︎
   and pay them their just deserts.
6  They take no heed of the Lord’s doings,
      nor of the works of his hands; ♦︎
   therefore shall he break them down
      and not build them up.
7  Blessed be the Lord, ♦︎
   for he has heard the voice of my prayer.
8  The Lord is my strength and my shield; ♦︎
   my heart has trusted in him and I am helped;
9  Therefore my heart dances for joy ♦︎
   and in my song will I praise him.
10  The Lord is the strength of his people, ♦︎
   a safe refuge for his anointed.
11  Save your people and bless your inheritance; ♦︎
   shepherd them and carry them for ever.

²⁰ Declare this in the house of Jacob,
   proclaim it in Judah:
²¹ Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,
   who have eyes, but do not see,
   who have ears, but do not hear.
²² Do you not fear me? says the Lord;
   Do you not tremble before me?
I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea,
   a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;
though the waves toss, they cannot prevail,
   though they roar, they cannot pass over it.
²³ But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart;
   they have turned aside and gone away.
²⁴ They do not say in their hearts,
   ‘Let us fear the Lord our God,
who gives the rain in its season,
   the autumn rain and the spring rain,
and keeps for us
   the weeks appointed for the harvest.’
²⁵ Your iniquities have turned these away,
   and your sins have deprived you of good.
²⁶ For scoundrels are found among my people;
   they take over the goods of others.
Like fowlers they set a trap;^*
   they catch human beings.
²⁷ Like a cage full of birds,
   their houses are full of treachery;
therefore they have become great and rich,
²⁸   they have grown fat and sleek.
They know no limits in deeds of wickedness;
   they do not judge with justice
the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper,
   and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
²⁹ Shall I not punish them for these things?

says the Lord,
   and shall I not bring retribution
   on a nation such as this?

³⁰ An appalling and horrible thing
   has happened in the land:
³¹ the prophets prophesy falsely,
   and the priests rule as the prophets direct;^*
my people love to have it so,
   but what will you do when the end comes?

Witnesses to Jesus

30 ‘I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgement is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

31 ‘If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. ³²There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. ³³You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. ³⁴Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. ³⁵He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. ³⁶But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. ³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, ³⁸and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.

39 ‘You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. ⁴⁰Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. ⁴¹I do not accept glory from human beings. ⁴²But I know that you do not have the love of God in^* you. ⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. ⁴⁴How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? ⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. ⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.