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Psalm 21

1  The king shall rejoice in your strength, O Lord; ♦︎
   how greatly shall he rejoice in your salvation!
2  You have given him his heart’s desire ♦︎
   and have not denied the request of his lips.
3  For you come to meet him with blessings of goodness ♦︎
   and set a crown of pure gold upon his head.
4  He asked of you life and you gave it him, ♦︎
   length of days, for ever and ever.
5  His honour is great because of your salvation; ♦︎
   glory and majesty have you laid upon him.
6  You have granted him everlasting felicity ♦︎
   and will make him glad with joy in your presence.
7  For the king puts his trust in the Lord; ♦︎
   because of the loving-kindness of the Most High,
      he shall not be overthrown.
8  Your hand shall mark down all your enemies; ♦︎
   your right hand will find out those who hate you.
9  You will make them like a fiery oven
      in the time of your wrath; ♦︎
   the Lord will swallow them up in his anger
      and the fire will consume them.
10  Their fruit you will root out of the land ♦︎
   and their seed from among its inhabitants.
11  Because they intend evil against you ♦︎
   and devise wicked schemes
      which they cannot perform,
12  You will put them to flight ♦︎
   when you aim your bow at their faces.
13  Be exalted, O Lord, in your own might; ♦︎
   we will make music and sing of your power.

¹⁴ Do not fear, you worm Jacob,
   you insect^* Israel!
I will help you, says the Lord;
   your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
¹⁵ Now, I will make of you a threshing-sledge,
   sharp, new, and having teeth;
you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,
   and you shall make the hills like chaff.
¹⁶ You shall winnow them and the wind shall carry them away,
   and the tempest shall scatter them.
Then you shall rejoice in the Lord;
   in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

¹⁷ When the poor and needy seek water,
   and there is none,
   and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the Lord will answer them,
   I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
¹⁸ I will open rivers on the bare heights,^*
   and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
   and the dry land springs of water.
¹⁹ I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
   the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive;
I will set in the desert the cypress,
   the plane and the pine together,
²⁰ so that all may see and know,
   all may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
   the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Paul’s Reason for Writing So Boldly

14 I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters,^* that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. ¹⁵Nevertheless, on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God ¹⁶to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. ¹⁷In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. ¹⁸For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished^* through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, ¹⁹by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God,^* so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news^* of Christ. ²⁰Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news,^* not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, ²¹but as it is written,
‘Those who have never been told of him shall see,
   and those who have never heard of him shall understand.’