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Psalm 7

1  O Lord my God, in you I take refuge; ♦︎
   save me from all who pursue me, and deliver me,
2  Lest they rend me like a lion and tear me in pieces ♦︎
   while there is no one to help me.
3  O Lord my God, if I have done these things: ♦︎
   if there is any wickedness in my hands,
4  If I have repaid my friend with evil, ♦︎
   or plundered my enemy without a cause,
5  Then let my enemy pursue me and overtake me, ♦︎
   trample my life to the ground,
      and lay my honour in the dust.
6  Rise up, O Lord, in your wrath;
      lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies. ♦︎
   Awaken, my God, the judgement that you have commanded.
7  Let the assembly of the peoples gather round you; ♦︎
   be seated high above them: O Lord, judge the nations.
8  Give judgement for me
      according to my righteousness, O Lord, ♦︎
   and according to the innocence that is in me.
9  Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,
      but establish the righteous; ♦︎
   for you test the mind and heart, O righteous God.
10  God is my shield that is over me; ♦︎
   he saves the true of heart.
11  God is a righteous judge; ♦︎
   he is provoked all day long.
12  If they will not repent, God will whet his sword; ♦︎
   he has bent his bow and made it ready.
13  He has prepared the weapons of death; ♦︎
   he makes his arrows shafts of fire.
14  Behold those who are in labour with wickedness, ♦︎
   who conceive evil and give birth to lies.
15  They dig a pit and make it deep ♦︎
   and fall into the hole that they have made for others.
16  Their mischief rebounds on their own head; ♦︎
   their violence falls on their own scalp.
17  I will give thanks to the Lord for his righteousness, ♦︎
   and I will make music to the name of the Lord Most High.

Israel Rejects Correction

⁶ I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
   and lack of bread in all your places,
yet you did not return to me,

says the Lord.

⁷ And I also withheld the rain from you
   when there were still three months to the harvest;
I would send rain on one city,
   and send no rain on another city;
one field would be rained upon,
   and the field on which it did not rain withered;
⁸ so two or three towns wandered to one town
   to drink water, and were not satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,

says the Lord.

⁹ I struck you with blight and mildew;
   I laid waste^* your gardens and your vineyards;
   the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees;
yet you did not return to me,

says the Lord.

¹⁰ I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
   I killed your young men with the sword;
I carried away your horses;^*
   and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;
yet you did not return to me,

says the Lord.

¹¹ I overthrew some of you,
   as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
   and you were like a brand snatched from the fire;
yet you did not return to me,

says the Lord.

¹² Therefore, thus I will do to you, O Israel;
   because I will do this to you,
   prepare to meet your God, O Israel!

¹³ For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind,
   reveals his thoughts to mortals,
makes the morning darkness,
   and treads on the heights of the earth—
   the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!

Love One Another

11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. ¹²We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. ¹³Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters,^* that the world hates you. ¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. ¹⁵All who hate a brother or sister^* are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. ¹⁶We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. ¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister^* in need and yet refuses help?