541 Let your name be my salvation, O God; let my cause be judged by your strength. 2 Let my prayer come before you, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. 3 For men who are going after me have come out against me, violent men are purposing to take my soul; they have not put God before their eyes. (Selah.)
4 See, God is my helper: the Lord is the great supporter of my soul. 5 Let the evil works of my haters come back on them again; let them be cut off by your good faith. 6 Freely will I make my offerings to you; I will give praise to your name, O Lord, for it is good. 7 Because it has been my saviour from all my trouble; and my eyes have seen the punishment of my haters.
551 Give hearing to my prayer, O God; and let not your ear be shut against my request. 2 Give thought to me, and let my prayer be answered: I have been made low in sorrow; 3 I am troubled because of the voice of the cruel ones, because of the loud cry of the evil-doers; for they put a weight of evil on me, and they are cruel in their hate for me. 4 My heart is deeply wounded, and the fear of death has come on me. 5 Fear and shaking have come over me, with deep fear I am covered. 6 And I said, If only I had wings like a dove! for then I would go in flight from here and be at rest. 7 I would go wandering far away, living in the waste land. (Selah.) 8 I would quickly take cover from the driving storm and from the violent wind.
9 Send destruction on them, O Lord, make a division of tongues among them: for I have seen fighting and violent acts in the town. 10 By day and night they go round the town, on the walls; trouble and sorrow are in the heart of it. 11 Evil is there; cruel rule and deceit are ever in the streets. 12 For it was not my hater who said evil of me; that would have been no grief to me; it was not one outside the number of my friends who made himself strong against me, or I would have kept myself from him in a secret place; 13 But it was you, my equal, my guide, my well-loved friend. 14 We had loving talk together, and went to the house of God in company. 15 Let the hand of death come on them suddenly, and let them go down living into the underworld; because evil is in their houses and in their hearts.
16 As for me, I will make my prayer to God, and he will be my saviour. 17 In the evening and in the morning and in the middle of the day I will make my prayer with sounds of grief; and my voice will come to his ears. 18 He has taken my soul away from the attack which was made against me, and given it peace; for great numbers were against me. 19 God will give thought to me; he who from early times is strong will send pain and trouble on them. (Selah.) Because they are unchanged, they have no fear of God. 20 He has put out his hand against those who were at peace with him; he has not kept his agreement. 21 The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, but they were sharp swords. 22 Put your cares on the Lord, and he will be your support; he will not let the upright man be moved. 23 But you, O God, will send them down into the underworld; the cruel and the false will be cut off before half their days are ended; but I will have faith in you.
561 Have mercy on me, O God, for man is attempting my destruction; every day he makes cruel attacks against me. 2 My haters are ever ready to put an end to me; great numbers are lifting themselves up against me. 3 In the time of my fear, I will have faith in you. 4 In God will I give praise to his word; in God have I put my hope; I will have no fear of what flesh may do to me. 5 Every day they make wrong use of my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil. 6 They come together, they are waiting in secret places, they take note of my steps, they are waiting for my soul. 7 By evil-doing they will not get free from punishment. In wrath, O God, let the peoples be made low.
8 You have seen my wanderings; put the drops from my eyes into your bottle; are they not in your record? 9 When I send up my cry to you, my haters will be turned back; I am certain of this, for God is with me. 10 In God will I give praise to his word; in the Lord will I give praise to his word. 11 In God have I put my hope, I will have no fear of what man may do to me. 12 I keep the memory of my debt to you, O God; I will give you the offerings of praise. 13 Because you have taken my soul from the power of death; and kept my feet from falling, so that I may be walking before God in the light of life.
31 How then is the Jew better off? or what profit is there in circumcision? 2 Much in every way: first of all because the words of God were given to them. 3 And if some have no faith, will that make the faith of God without effect? 4 In no way: but let God be true, though every man is seen to be untrue; as it is said in the Writings, That your words may be seen to be true, and you may be seen to be right when you are judged. 5 But if the righteousness of God is supported by our wrongdoing what is to be said? is it wrong for God to be angry (as men may say)? 6 In no way: because if it is so, how is God able to be the judge of all the world? 7 But if, because I am untrue, God being seen to be true gets more glory, why am I to be judged as a sinner? 8 Let us not do evil so that good may come (a statement which we are falsely said by some to have made), because such behaviour will have its right punishment.
9 What then? are we worse off than they? In no way: because we have before made it clear that Jews as well as Greeks are all under the power of sin; 10 As it is said in the holy Writings, There is not one who does righteousness; 11 Not one who has the knowledge of what is right, not one who is a searcher after God; 12 They have all gone out of the way, there is no profit in any of them; there is not one who does good, not so much as one: 13 Their throat is like an open place of death; with their tongues they have said what is not true: the poison of snakes is under their lips: 14 Whose mouth is full of curses and bitter words: 15 Their feet are quick in running after blood; 16 Destruction and trouble are in their ways; 17 And of the way of peace they have no knowledge: 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 Now, we have knowledge that what the law says is for those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and all men may be judged by God: 20 Because by the works of the law no man is able to have righteousness in his eyes, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
21 But now without the law there is a revelation of the righteousness of God, to which witness is given by the law and the prophets; 22 That is, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all those who have faith; and one man is not different from another, 23 For all have done wrong and are far from the glory of God; 24 And they may have righteousness put to their credit, freely, by his grace, through the salvation which is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God has put forward as the sign of his mercy, through faith, by his blood, to make clear his righteousness when, in his pity, God let the sins of earlier times go without punishment; 26 And to make clear his righteousness now, so that he might himself be upright, and give righteousness to him who has faith in Jesus. 27 What reason, then, is there for pride? It is shut out. By what sort of law? of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For this reason, then, a man may get righteousness by faith without the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? is he not in the same way the God of Gentiles? Yes, of Gentiles: 30 If God is one; and he will give righteousness because of faith to those who have circumcision, and through faith to those who have not circumcision. 31 Do we, then, through faith make the law of no effect? in no way: but we make it clear that the law is important.
