Bible Browser

Psalm 79

1  O God, the heathen have come into your heritage; ♦︎
   your holy temple have they defiled
      and made Jerusalem a heap of stones.
2  The dead bodies of your servants they have given
      to be food for the birds of the air, ♦︎
   and the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the field.
3  Their blood have they shed like water
      on every side of Jerusalem, ♦︎
   and there was no one to bury them.
4  We have become the taunt of our neighbours, ♦︎
   the scorn and derision of those that are round about us.
5  Lord, how long will you be angry, for ever? ♦︎
   How long will your jealous fury blaze like fire?
6  Pour out your wrath upon the nations that have not known you, ♦︎
   and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your name.
7  For they have devoured Jacob ♦︎
   and laid waste his dwelling place.
8  Remember not against us our former sins; ♦︎
   let your compassion make haste to meet us,
      for we are brought very low.
9  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; ♦︎
   deliver us, and wipe away our sins for your name’s sake.

8At that time, says the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; ²and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have followed, and which they have inquired of and worshipped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground. ³Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, says the Lord of hosts.

The Blind Perversity of the Whole Nation

⁴ You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
When people fall, do they not get up again?
   If they go astray, do they not turn back?
⁵ Why then has this people^* turned away
   in perpetual backsliding?
They have held fast to deceit,
   they have refused to return.
⁶ I have given heed and listened,
   but they do not speak honestly;
no one repents of wickedness,
   saying, ‘What have I done!’
All of them turn to their own course,
   like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
⁷ Even the stork in the heavens
   knows its times;
and the turtle-dove, swallow, and crane^*
   observe the time of their coming;
but my people do not know
   the ordinance of the Lord.

⁸ How can you say, ‘We are wise,
   and the law of the Lord is with us’,
when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes
   has made it into a lie?
⁹ The wise shall be put to shame,
   they shall be dismayed and taken;
since they have rejected the word of the Lord,
   what wisdom is in them?
¹⁰ Therefore I will give their wives to others
   and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
   everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest
   everyone deals falsely.
¹¹ They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,
   saying, ‘Peace, peace’,
   when there is no peace.
¹² They acted shamefully, they committed abomination;
   yet they were not at all ashamed,
   they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
   at the time when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,

says the Lord.
¹³ When I wanted to gather them, says the Lord,
   there are^* no grapes on the vine,
   nor figs on the fig tree;
even the leaves are withered,
   and what I gave them has passed away from them.^*

God’s Love in Christ Jesus

31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.^{* 35}Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
   we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.