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Psalm 55

1  Hear my prayer, O God; ♦︎
   hide not yourself from my petition.
2  Give heed to me and answer me; ♦︎
   I am restless in my complaining.
3  I am alarmed at the voice of the enemy ♦︎
   and at the clamour of the wicked;
4  For they would bring down evil upon me ♦︎
   and are set against me in fury.
5  My heart is disquieted within me, ♦︎
   and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
6  Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, ♦︎
   and a horrible dread has overwhelmed me.
7  And I said: ‘O that I had wings like a dove, ♦︎
   for then would I fly away and be at rest.
8  ‘Then would I flee far away ♦︎
   and make my lodging in the wilderness.
9  ‘I would make haste to escape ♦︎
   from the stormy wind and tempest.’
10  Confuse their tongues, O Lord, and divide them, ♦︎
   for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
11  Day and night they go about on her walls; ♦︎
   mischief and trouble are in her midst.
12  Wickedness walks in her streets; ♦︎
   oppression and guile never leave her squares.
13  For it was not an open enemy that reviled me, ♦︎
   for then I could have borne it;
14  Nor was it my adversary that puffed himself up against me, ♦︎
   for then I would have hid myself from him.
15  But it was even you, one like myself, ♦︎
   my companion and my own familiar friend.
16  We took sweet counsel together ♦︎
   and walked with the multitude in the house of God.
17  Let death come suddenly upon them;
      let them go down alive to the Pit; ♦︎
   for wickedness inhabits their dwellings, their very hearts.
18  As for me, I will call upon God ♦︎
   and the Lord will deliver me.
19  In the evening and morning and at noonday
      I will pray and make my supplication, ♦︎
   and he shall hear my voice.
20  He shall redeem my soul in peace
      from the battle waged against me, ♦︎
   for many have come upon me.
21  God, who is enthroned of old,
      will hear and bring them down; ♦︎
   they will not repent, for they have no fear of God.
22  My companion stretched out his hands against his friend ♦︎
   and has broken his covenant;
23  His speech was softer than butter, though war was in his heart; ♦︎
   his words were smoother than oil, yet are they naked swords.
24  Cast your burden upon the Lord and he will sustain you, ♦︎
   and will not let the righteous fall for ever.
25  But those that are bloodthirsty and deceitful, O God, ♦︎
   you will bring down to the pit of destruction.
26  They shall not live out half their days, ♦︎
   but my trust shall be in you, O Lord.

Aaron’s Miraculous Rod

8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ⁹‘When Pharaoh says to you, “Perform a wonder”, then you shall say to Aaron, “Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, and it will become a snake.” ’ ¹⁰So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as the Lord had commanded; Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. ¹¹Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts. ¹²Each one threw down his staff, and they became snakes; but Aaron’s staff swallowed up theirs. ¹³Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

The First Plague: Water Turned to Blood

14 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. ¹⁵Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water; stand by at the river bank to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was turned into a snake. ¹⁶Say to him, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness.’ But until now you have not listened. ¹⁷Thus says the Lord, ‘By this you shall know that I am the Lord.’ See, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall be turned to blood. ¹⁸The fish in the river shall die, the river itself shall stink, and the Egyptians shall be unable to drink water from the Nile.” ’ ¹⁹The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to Aaron, “Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over its rivers, its canals, and its ponds, and all its pools of water—so that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout the whole land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.” ’

20 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and of his officials he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the river, and all the water in the river was turned into blood, ²¹and the fish in the river died. The river stank so that the Egyptians could not drink its water, and there was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt. ²²But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. ²³Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. ²⁴And all the Egyptians had to dig along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the river.

14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. ¹⁵For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; ¹⁶to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? ¹⁷For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many;^* but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.

Ministers of the New Covenant

3Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? ²You yourselves are our letter, written on our^* hearts, to be known and read by all; ³and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ towards God. ⁵Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, ⁶who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.