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Psalm 69

1  Save me, O God, ♦︎
   for the waters have come up, even to my neck.
2  I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold; ♦︎
   I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me.
3  I have grown weary with crying; my throat is raw; ♦︎
   my eyes have failed from looking so long for my God.
4  Those who hate me without any cause ♦︎
   are more than the hairs of my head;
5  Those who would destroy me are mighty; ♦︎
   my enemies accuse me falsely:
      must I now give back what I never stole?
6  O God, you know my foolishness, ♦︎
   and my faults are not hidden from you.
7  Let not those who hope in you
      be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts; ♦︎
   let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me,
      O God of Israel.
8  For your sake have I suffered reproach; ♦︎
   shame has covered my face.
9  I have become a stranger to my kindred, ♦︎
   an alien to my mother’s children.
10  Zeal for your house has eaten me up; ♦︎
   the scorn of those who scorn you has fallen upon me.
11  I humbled myself with fasting, ♦︎
   but that was turned to my reproach.
12  I put on sackcloth also ♦︎
   and became a byword among them.
13  Those who sit at the gate murmur against me, ♦︎
   and the drunkards make songs about me.
14  But as for me, I make my prayer to you, O Lord; ♦︎
   at an acceptable time, O God.
15  Answer me, O God, in the abundance of your mercy ♦︎
   and with your sure salvation.
16  Draw me out of the mire, that I sink not; ♦︎
   let me be rescued from those who hate me
      and out of the deep waters.
17  Let not the water flood drown me,
      neither the deep swallow me up; ♦︎
   let not the Pit shut its mouth upon me.
18  Answer me, Lord, for your loving-kindness is good; ♦︎
   turn to me in the multitude of your mercies.
19  Hide not your face from your servant; ♦︎
   be swift to answer me, for I am in trouble.
20  Draw near to my soul and redeem me; ♦︎
   deliver me because of my enemies.
21  You know my reproach, my shame and my dishonour; ♦︎
   my adversaries are all in your sight.
22  Reproach has broken my heart; I am full of heaviness. ♦︎
   I looked for some to have pity, but there was no one,
      neither found I any to comfort me.
23  They gave me gall to eat, ♦︎
   and when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink.
24  Let the table before them be a trap ♦︎
   and their sacred feasts a snare.
25  Let their eyes be darkened, that they cannot see, ♦︎
   and give them continual trembling in their loins.
26  Pour out your indignation upon them, ♦︎
   and let the heat of your anger overtake them.
27  Let their camp be desolate, ♦︎
   and let there be no one to dwell in their tents.
28  For they persecute the one whom you have stricken, ♦︎
   and increase the sorrows of him whom you have pierced.
29  Lay to their charge guilt upon guilt, ♦︎
   and let them not receive your vindication.
30  Let them be wiped out of the book of the living ♦︎
   and not be written among the righteous.
31  As for me, I am poor and in misery; ♦︎
   your saving help, O God, will lift me up.
32  I will praise the name of God with a song; ♦︎
   I will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving.
33  This will please the Lord more than an offering of oxen, ♦︎
   more than bulls with horns and hooves.
34  The humble shall see and be glad; ♦︎
   you who seek God, your heart shall live.
35  For the Lord listens to the needy, ♦︎
   and his own who are imprisoned he does not despise.
36  Let the heavens and the earth praise him, ♦︎
   the seas and all that moves in them;
37  For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah; ♦︎
   they shall live there and have it in possession.
38  The children of his servants shall inherit it, ♦︎
   and they that love his name shall dwell therein.

29 When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, ³⁰‘The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly to us, and charged us with spying on the land. ³¹But we said to him, “We are honest men, we are not spies. ³²We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in the land of Canaan.” ³³Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, “By this I shall know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way. ³⁴Bring your youngest brother to me, and I shall know that you are not spies but honest men. Then I will release your brother to you, and you may trade in the land.” ’

35 As they were emptying their sacks, there in each one’s sack was his bag of money. When they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were dismayed. ³⁶And their father Jacob said to them, ‘I am the one you have bereaved of children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has happened to me!’ ³⁷Then Reuben said to his father, ‘You may kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.’ ³⁸But he said, ‘My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left. If harm should come to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Sheol.’

9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, ¹⁰thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Glorify God in Body and Spirit

12 ‘All things are lawful for me’, but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me’, but I will not be dominated by anything. ¹³‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’,^* and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. ¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’ ¹⁷But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. ¹⁸Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. ¹⁹Or do you not know that your body is a temple^* of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.