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Psalm 70

1  O God, make speed to save me; ♦︎
   O Lord, make haste to help me.
2  Let those who seek my life
      be put to shame and confusion; ♦︎
   let them be turned back and disgraced
      who wish me evil.
3  Let those who mock and deride me ♦︎
   turn back because of their shame.
4  But let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; ♦︎
   let those who love your salvation say always, ‘Great is the Lord!’
5  As for me, I am poor and needy; ♦︎
   come to me quickly, O God.
6  You are my help and my deliverer; ♦︎
   O Lord, do not delay.

Israel’s Guilt and Punishment

3Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
² You only have I known
   of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
   for all your iniquities.

³ Do two walk together
   unless they have made an appointment?
⁴ Does a lion roar in the forest,
   when it has no prey?
Does a young lion cry out from its den,
   if it has caught nothing?
⁵ Does a bird fall into a snare on the earth,
   when there is no trap for it?
Does a snare spring up from the ground,
   when it has taken nothing?
⁶ Is a trumpet blown in a city,
   and the people are not afraid?
Does disaster befall a city,
   unless the Lord has done it?
⁷ Surely the Lord God does nothing,
   without revealing his secret
   to his servants the prophets.
⁸ The lion has roared;
   who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
   who can but prophesy?

⁹ Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod,
   and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt,
and say, ‘Assemble yourselves on Mount^* Samaria,
   and see what great tumults are within it,
   and what oppressions are in its midst.’
¹⁰ They do not know how to do right, says the Lord,
   those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.
¹¹ Therefore, thus says the Lord God:
An adversary shall surround the land,
   and strip you of your defence;
   and your strongholds shall be plundered.

12 Thus says the Lord: As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who live in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part^* of a bed.

13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four^* horns of the golden altar before God, ¹⁴saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ ¹⁵So the four angels were released, who had been held ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, to kill a third of humankind. ¹⁶The number of the troops of cavalry was two hundred million; I heard their number. ¹⁷And this was how I saw the horses in my vision: the riders wore breastplates the colour of fire and of sapphire^* and of sulphur; the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulphur came out of their mouths. ¹⁸By these three plagues a third of humankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulphur coming out of their mouths. ¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they inflict harm.

20 The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. ²¹And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts.