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Psalm 7

Plea for Help against Persecutors

A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.
¹ O Lord my God, in you I take refuge;
   save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,
² or like a lion they will tear me apart;
   they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.

³ O Lord my God, if I have done this,
   if there is wrong in my hands,
⁴ if I have repaid my ally with harm
   or plundered my foe without cause,
⁵ then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,
   trample my life to the ground,
   and lay my soul in the dust.
          Selah

⁶ Rise up, O Lord, in your anger;
   lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
   awake, O my God;^* you have appointed a judgement.
⁷ Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you,
   and over it take your seat^* on high.
⁸ The Lord judges the peoples;
   judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
   and according to the integrity that is in me.

⁹ O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
   but establish the righteous,
you who test the minds and hearts,
   O righteous God.
¹⁰ God is my shield,
   who saves the upright in heart.
¹¹ God is a righteous judge,
   and a God who has indignation every day.

¹² If one does not repent, God^* will whet his sword;
   he has bent and strung his bow;
¹³ he has prepared his deadly weapons,
   making his arrows fiery shafts.
¹⁴ See how they conceive evil,
   and are pregnant with mischief,
   and bring forth lies.
¹⁵ They make a pit, digging it out,
   and fall into the hole that they have made.
¹⁶ Their mischief returns upon their own heads,
   and on their own heads their violence descends.

¹⁷ I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,
   and sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

Psalm 8

Divine Majesty and Human Dignity

To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
¹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
²   Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
   to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
   the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   mortals^* that you care for them?

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God,^*
   and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
   you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
   and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
   whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth!