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A Prayer for God’s People

36Have mercy upon us, O God^* of all,
²   and put all the nations in fear of you.
³ Lift up your hand against foreign nations
   and let them see your might.
⁴ As you have used us to show your holiness to them,
   so use them to show your glory to us.
⁵ Then they will know,^* as we have known,
   that there is no God but you, O Lord.
⁶ Give new signs, and work other wonders;
⁷   make your hand and right arm glorious.
⁸ Rouse your anger and pour out your wrath;
⁹   destroy the adversary and wipe out the enemy.
¹⁰ Hasten the day, and remember the appointed time,^*
   and let people recount your mighty deeds.
¹¹ Let survivors be consumed in the fiery wrath,
   and may those who harm your people meet destruction.
¹² Crush the heads of hostile rulers
   who say, ‘There is no one but ourselves.’
¹³ Gather all the tribes of Jacob,^*
16   and give them their inheritance, as at the beginning.
¹⁷ Have mercy, O Lord, on the people called by your name,
   on Israel, whom you have named^* your firstborn,
¹⁸ Have pity on the city of your sanctuary,^*
   Jerusalem, the place of your dwelling.^*
19 Fill Zion with your majesty,^*
   and your temple^* with your glory.
²⁰ Bear witness to those whom you created in the beginning,
   and fulfil the prophecies spoken in your name.
²¹ Reward those who wait for you
   and let your prophets be found trustworthy.
²² Hear, O Lord, the prayer of your servants, according to your goodwill towards^* your people,
and all who are on the earth will know
   that you are the Lord, the God of the ages.

Concerning Discrimination

²³ The stomach will take any food,
   yet one food is better than another.
²⁴ As the palate tastes the kinds of game,
   so an intelligent mind detects false words.
²⁵ A perverse mind will cause grief,
   but a person with experience will pay him back.
²⁶ A woman will accept any man as a husband,
   but one girl is preferable to another.
²⁷ A woman’s beauty lights up a man’s face,
   and there is nothing he desires more.
²⁸ If kindness and humility mark her speech,
   her husband is more fortunate than other men.
²⁹ He who acquires a wife gets his best possession,^*
   a helper fit for him and a pillar of support.^*
30 Where there is no fence, the property will be plundered;
   and where there is no wife, a man will become a fugitive and a wanderer.^*
31 For who will trust a nimble robber
   that skips from city to city?
So who will trust a man that has no nest,
   but lodges wherever night overtakes him?