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Psalm 64

1  Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint; ♦︎
   preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2  Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, ♦︎
   from the gathering of evildoers.
3  They sharpen their tongue like a sword ♦︎
   and aim their bitter words like arrows,
4  That they may shoot at the blameless from hiding places; ♦︎
   suddenly they shoot, and are not seen.
5  They hold fast to their evil course; ♦︎
   they talk of laying snares, saying, ‘Who will see us?’
6  They search out wickedness and lay a cunning trap, ♦︎
   for deep are the inward thoughts of the heart.
7  But God will shoot at them with his swift arrow, ♦︎
   and suddenly they shall be wounded.
8  Their own tongues shall make them fall, ♦︎
   and all who see them shall wag their heads in scorn.
9  All peoples shall fear and tell what God has done, ♦︎
   and they will ponder all his works.
10  The righteous shall rejoice in the Lord
      and put their trust in him, ♦︎
   and all that are true of heart shall exult.

Job Replies: I Know That My Redeemer Lives

19Then Job answered:
² ‘How long will you torment me,
   and break me in pieces with words?
³ These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
   are you not ashamed to wrong me?
⁴ And even if it is true that I have erred,
   my error remains with me.
⁵ If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,
   and make my humiliation an argument against me,
⁶ know then that God has put me in the wrong,
   and closed his net around me.
⁷ Even when I cry out, “Violence!” I am not answered;
   I call aloud, but there is no justice.
⁸ He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
   and he has set darkness upon my paths.
⁹ He has stripped my glory from me,
   and taken the crown from my head.
¹⁰ He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
   he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
¹¹ He has kindled his wrath against me,
   and counts me as his adversary.
¹² His troops come on together;
   they have thrown up siege-works^* against me,
   and encamp around my tent.

¹³ ‘He has put my family far from me,
   and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
¹⁵   the guests in my house have forgotten me;
my serving-girls count me as a stranger;
   I have become an alien in their eyes.
¹⁶ I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
   I must myself plead with him.
¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife;
   I am loathsome to my own family.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me;
   when I rise, they talk against me.
¹⁹ All my intimate friends abhor me,
   and those whom I loved have turned against me.
²⁰ My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
   and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
²¹ Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
   for the hand of God has touched me!
²² Why do you, like God, pursue me,
   never satisfied with my flesh?

One in Christ

11 So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth,^* called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision’—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body^* through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.^{* 17}So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.^{* 21}In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually^* into a dwelling-place for God.