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¹⁰ For I hear many whispering:
   ‘Terror is all around!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!’
   All my close friends
   are watching for me to stumble.
‘Perhaps he can be enticed,
   and we can prevail against him,
   and take our revenge on him.’
¹¹ But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior;
   therefore my persecutors will stumble,
   and they will not prevail.
They will be greatly shamed,
   for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonour
   will never be forgotten.
¹² O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous,
   you see the heart and the mind;
let me see your retribution upon them,
   for to you I have committed my cause.

¹³ Sing to the Lord;
   praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
   from the hands of evildoers.

Psalm 69

Prayer for Deliverance from Persecution

To the leader: according to Lilies. Of David.
¹ Save me, O God,
   for the waters have come up to my neck.
⁸ I have become a stranger to my kindred,
   an alien to my mother’s children.

⁹ It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;
   the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.
¹⁰ When I humbled my soul with fasting,^*
   they insulted me for doing so. ¹⁴rescue me
   from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
   and from the deep waters.
¹⁷ Do not hide your face from your servant,
   for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.
³³ For the Lord hears the needy,
   and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

³⁴ Let heaven and earth praise him,
   the seas and everything that moves in them.
³⁵ For God will save Zion
   and rebuild the cities of Judah;
and his servants shall live^* there and possess it;

Adam and Christ

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— ¹³sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. ¹⁴Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

Whom to Fear

26 ‘So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^{* 29}Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. ³⁰And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

32 ‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; ³³but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.