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A Plea for Mercy

5Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
   look, and see our disgrace!
² Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
   our homes to aliens.
³ We have become orphans, fatherless;
   our mothers are like widows.
⁴ We must pay for the water we drink;
   the wood we get must be bought.
⁵ With a yoke^* on our necks we are hard driven;
   we are weary, we are given no rest.
⁶ We have made a pact with^* Egypt and Assyria,
   to get enough bread.
⁷ Our ancestors sinned; they are no more,
   and we bear their iniquities.
⁸ Slaves rule over us;
   there is no one to deliver us from their hand.
⁹ We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
   because of the sword in the wilderness.
¹⁰ Our skin is black as an oven
   from the scorching heat of famine.
¹¹ Women are raped in Zion,
   virgins in the towns of Judah.
¹² Princes are hung up by their hands;
   no respect is shown to the elders.
¹³ Young men are compelled to grind,
   and boys stagger under loads of wood.
¹⁴ The old men have left the city gate,
   the young men their music.
¹⁵ The joy of our hearts has ceased;
   our dancing has been turned to mourning.
¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head;
   woe to us, for we have sinned!
¹⁷ Because of this our hearts are sick,
   because of these things our eyes have grown dim:
¹⁸ because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate;
   jackals prowl over it.

¹⁹ But you, O Lord, reign for ever;
   your throne endures to all generations.
²⁰ Why have you forgotten us completely?
   Why have you forsaken us these many days?
²¹ Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;
   renew our days as of old—
²² unless you have utterly rejected us,
   and are angry with us beyond measure.

Psalm 69

Prayer for Deliverance from Persecution

To the leader: according to Lilies. Of David.
¹ Save me, O God,
   for the waters have come up 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 am weary with my crying;
   my throat is parched.
My eyes grow dim
   with waiting for my God.

⁴ More in number than the hairs of my head
   are those who hate me without cause;
many are those who would destroy me,
   my enemies who accuse me falsely.
What I did not steal
   must I now restore?
⁵ O God, you know my folly;
   the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.

⁶ Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me,
   O Lord God of hosts;
do not let those who seek you be dishonoured because of me,
   O God of Israel.
⁷ It is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
   that shame has covered my face.
⁸ I have become a stranger to my kindred,
   an alien to my mother’s children.

⁹ It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;
   the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.
¹⁰ When I humbled my soul with fasting,^*
   they insulted me for doing so.
¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing,
   I became a byword to them.
¹² I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate,
   and the drunkards make songs about me.

¹³ But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
   At an acceptable time, O God,
   in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.
With your faithful help ¹⁴rescue me
   from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
   and from the deep waters.
¹⁵ Do not let the flood sweep over me,
   or the deep swallow me up,
   or the Pit close its mouth over me.

¹⁶ Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
   according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
¹⁷ Do not hide your face from your servant,
   for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.
¹⁸ Draw near to me, redeem me,
   set me free because of my enemies.

¹⁹ You know the insults I receive,
   and my shame and dishonour;
   my foes are all known to you.
²⁰ Insults have broken my heart,
   so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none;
   and for comforters, but I found none.
²¹ They gave me poison for food,
   and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

²² Let their table be a trap for them,
   a snare for their allies.
²³ Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
   and make their loins tremble continually.
²⁴ Pour out your indignation upon them,
   and let your burning anger overtake them.
²⁵ May their camp be a desolation;
   let no one live in their tents.
²⁶ For they persecute those whom you have struck down,
   and those whom you have wounded, they attack still more.^*
27 Add guilt to their guilt;
   may they have no acquittal from you.
²⁸ Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;
   let them not be enrolled among the righteous.
²⁹ But I am lowly and in pain;
   let your salvation, O God, protect me.

³⁰ I will praise the name of God with a song;
   I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
³¹ This will please the Lord more than an ox
   or a bull with horns and hoofs.
³² Let the oppressed see it and be glad;
   you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
³³ For the Lord hears the needy,
   and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

³⁴ Let heaven and earth praise him,
   the seas and everything that moves in them.
³⁵ For God will save Zion
   and rebuild the cities of Judah;
and his servants shall live^* there and possess it;
³⁶   the children of his servants shall inherit it,
   and those who love his name shall live in it.

False Prophets and Their Punishment

2But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. ²Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers^* the way of truth will be maligned. ³And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell^* and committed them to chains^* of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgement; ⁵and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; ⁶and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction^* and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;^{* 7}and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless ⁸(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), ⁹then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement ¹⁰—especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority.

Bold and wilful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones,^{* 11}whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring against them a slanderous judgement from the Lord.^{* 12}These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and when those creatures are destroyed,^* they also will be destroyed, ¹³suffering^* the penalty for doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, revelling in their dissipation^* while they feast with you. ¹⁴They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! ¹⁵They have left the straight road and have gone astray, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor,^* who loved the wages of doing wrong, ¹⁶but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved. ¹⁸For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just^* escaped from those who live in error. ¹⁹They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them. ²⁰For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them. ²²It has happened to them according to the true proverb,
‘The dog turns back to its own vomit’,
and,
‘The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.’