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Psalm 108

1  My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; ♦︎
   I will sing and give you praise.
2  Awake, my soul; awake, harp and lyre, ♦︎
   that I may awaken the dawn.
3  I will give you thanks, O Lord, among the peoples; ♦︎
   I will sing praise to you among the nations.
4  For your loving-kindness is as high as the heavens ♦︎
   and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
5  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens ♦︎
   and your glory over all the earth.
6  That your beloved may be delivered, ♦︎
   save us by your right hand and answer me.
7  God has spoken in his holiness: ♦︎
   ‘I will triumph and divide Shechem
      and share out the valley of Succoth.
8  ‘Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine; ♦︎
   Ephraim is my helmet and Judah my sceptre.
9  ‘Moab shall be my washpot,
      over Edom will I cast my sandal, ♦︎
   across Philistia will I shout in triumph.’
10  Who will lead me into the strong city? ♦︎
   Who will bring me into Edom?
11  Have you not cast us off, O God? ♦︎
   Will you no longer go forth with our troops?
12  O grant us your help against the enemy, ♦︎
   for earthly help is in vain.
13  Through God will we do great acts, ♦︎
   for it is he that shall tread down our enemies.

Psalm 109

1  Keep silent no longer, O God of my praise, ♦︎
   for the mouth of wickedness and treachery
      is opened against me.
2  They have spoken against me with a lying tongue; ♦︎
   they encompassed me with words of hatred
      and fought against me without a cause.
3  In return for my love, they set themselves against me, ♦︎
   even though I had prayed for them.
4  Thus have they repaid me with evil for good, ♦︎
   and hatred for my good will.
5  They say, ‘Appoint a wicked man over him, ♦︎
   and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
6  ‘When he is judged, let him be found guilty, ♦︎
   and let his prayer be counted as sin.
7  ‘Let his days be few ♦︎
   and let another take his office.
8  ‘Let his children be fatherless ♦︎
   and his wife become a widow.
9  ‘Let his children wander to beg their bread; ♦︎
   let them seek it in desolate places.
10  ‘Let the creditor seize all that he has; ♦︎
   let strangers plunder the fruit of his toil.
11  ‘Let there be no one to keep faith with him, ♦︎
   or have compassion on his fatherless children.
12  ‘Let his line soon come to an end ♦︎
   and his name be blotted out in the next generation.
13  ‘Let the wickedness of his fathers
      be remembered before the Lord, ♦︎
   and no sin of his mother be blotted out;
14  ‘Let their sin be always before the Lord, ♦︎
   that he may root out their name from the earth;
15  ‘Because he was not minded to keep faith, ♦︎
   but persecuted the poor and needy
      and sought to kill the brokenhearted.
16  ‘He loved cursing and it came to him; ♦︎
   he took no delight in blessing and it was far from him.
17  ‘He clothed himself with cursing as with a garment: ♦︎
   it seeped into his body like water
      and into his bones like oil;
18  ‘Let it be to him like the cloak
      which he wraps around him ♦︎
   and like the belt that he wears continually.’
19  Thus may the Lord repay my accusers ♦︎
   and those who speak evil against me.
20  But deal with me, O Lord my God, according to your name; ♦︎
   O deliver me, for sweet is your faithfulness.
21  For I am helpless and poor ♦︎
   and my heart is disquieted within me.
22  I fade like a shadow that lengthens; ♦︎
   I am shaken off like a locust.
23  My knees are weak through fasting ♦︎
   and my flesh is dried up and wasted.
24  I have become a reproach to them; ♦︎
   those who see me shake their heads in scorn.
25  Help me, O Lord my God; ♦︎
   save me for your loving mercy’s sake,
26  And they shall know that this is your hand, ♦︎
   that you, O Lord, have done it.
27  Though they curse, may you bless; ♦︎
   let those who rise up against me be confounded,
      but let your servant rejoice.
28  Let my accusers be clothed with disgrace ♦︎
   and wrap themselves in their shame as in a cloak.
29  I will give great thanks to the Lord with my mouth; ♦︎
   in the midst of the multitude will I praise him;
30  Because he has stood at the right hand of the needy, ♦︎
   to save them from those who would condemn them.

7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸Therefore it is said,
‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
   he gave gifts to his people.’
⁹(When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended^* into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) ¹¹The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. ¹⁴We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.