Old/New Testament

Prayer for Help

57 Show me loving-kindness, O God, show me loving-kindness. For my soul goes to You to be safe. And I will be safe in the shadow of Your wings until the trouble has passed. ² I will cry to God Most High, to God Who finishes all things for me. ³ He will send from heaven and save me. He will put to shame him who is breaking me under his feet. God will send His loving-kindness and His truth.

⁴ My soul is among lions. I must lie among the sons of men who breathe fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongues are a sharp sword. ⁵ Be lifted up above the heavens, O God. Let Your shining-greatness be above all the earth. ⁶ They have set a net for my steps. My soul is brought down. They dug a deep hole in front of me. But they themselves have fallen into it.

⁷ My heart will not be moved, O God. My heart cannot be moved. I will sing, yes, I will sing praises! ⁸ Awake, my shining-greatness. Awake, harps. I will awake early in the morning. ⁹ O Lord, I will give thanks to You among the people. I will sing praises to You among the nations. ¹⁰ For Your loving-kindness is great to the heavens, and Your truth to the clouds. ¹¹ Be lifted up above the heavens, O God. Let Your shining-greatness be above all the earth.

Prayer for God to Punish the Sinful

58 Do you speak what is right and good, O you powerful ones? Are you always right in how you judge, O sons of men? ² No, in your heart you do what is wrong. You use your hands to hurt and destroy in the land. ³ The sinful go wrong as soon as they are born. Those who speak lies go the wrong way from birth. ⁴ Their poison is like the poison of a snake. They are like a cobra that cannot or will not listen. ⁵ It does not hear the voice of the man who has power over it, even if the man is very good in his work.

⁶ O God, break the teeth in their mouth. Break out the teeth of the young lions, O Lord. ⁷ Let them flow away like water that pours. When he uses his arrows, let them have no heads. ⁸ Let them be like a snail that melts away as it goes. Like a baby born dead, may they never see the sun. ⁹ Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns, He will blow them away with a storm, both the green and the burning ones.

¹⁰ The one who is right and good will be full of joy when he sees the sinful punished. He will wash his feet in their blood. ¹¹ And men will say, “For sure there is pay for those who are right and good. For sure there is a God Who says who is guilty or not on the earth.”

Prayer for a Safe Place

59 O my God, take me away from those who hate me. Put me up high above those who rise up against me. ² Take me away from those who do wrong. And save me from those who kill. ³ For, look, they lie in wait for my life. Strong men are gathering together to fight me, but not because of my wrong-doing or my sin, O Lord. ⁴ I have done no wrong, but they get ready to fight against me. Rise up to help me. ⁵ You, O Lord God of All, God of Israel, rise up to punish all the nations. Show no loving-kindness to those people who cannot be trusted and plan sins. ⁶ They return at evening. They sound like dogs and go around the city. ⁷ See, they spit with their mouth. Swords are in their lips. And they say, “Who can hear us?” ⁸ But You laugh at them, O Lord. You laugh at all the nations.

⁹ O my Strength, I will watch for You. For God is my strong place. ¹⁰ My God in His loving-kindness will meet me. God will let me look at those who come against me and know that I will win the fight. ¹¹ Do not kill them, or my people may forget. Divide them by Your power and bring them down, O Lord, our safe-covering. ¹² Let them be caught in their pride for the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips. For the lies and bad things they say, ¹³ destroy them in anger. Destroy them so that they will be no more. Let it be known that God rules in Jacob and to the ends of the earth.

¹⁴ They return at evening. They make sounds like dogs and go around the city. ¹⁵ They go around looking for food and they show their teeth if they are not filled.

¹⁶ But as for me, I will sing of Your strength. Yes, I will sing with joy of Your loving-kindness in the morning. For You have been a strong and safe place for me in times of trouble. ¹⁷ O my Strength, I will sing praises to You. For God is my strong place and the God Who shows me loving-kindness.

4 What about Abraham, our early father? What did he learn? ² If Abraham was made right with God by what he did, he would have had something to be proud of. But he could not be proud before God. ³ The Holy Writings say, “Abraham put his trust in God and that made him right with God.” ^{(A) 4} If a man works, his pay is not a gift. It is something he has earned. ⁵ If a man has not worked to be saved, but has put his trust in God Who saves men from the punishment of their sins, that man is made right with God because of his trust in God. ⁶ David tells of this. He spoke of how happy the man is who puts his trust in God without working to be saved from the punishment of sin. ⁷ “Those people are happy whose sinful acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered. ⁸ Those people are happy whose sins the Lord will not remember.” ^(B)

⁹ Is this happiness given to the Jews only? Or is it given also to the people who are not Jews? We say again, “Abraham put his trust in God and that made him right with God.” ^{(C) 10} When did this happen? Was it before or after Abraham went through the religious act of becoming a Jew? It was before. ¹¹ He went through the religious act after he had put his trust in God. That religious act proved that his trust in God made him right with God even before he went through the religious act of becoming a Jew. In that way, it made him the early father of all those who believe. It showed that those who did not go through the religious act of becoming a Jew could be right with God. ¹² He is also the early father of all those who have gone through the religious act of becoming a Jew. It is not because they went through the act. It is because they put their trust in God the same as Abraham did before he went through the religious act of becoming a Jew. ¹³ God promised to give the world to him and to all his family after him. He did not make this promise because Abraham obeyed the Law. He promised to give the world to Abraham because he put his trust in God. This made him right with God. ¹⁴ If those who obey the Law are to get the world, then a person putting his trust in God means nothing. God’s promise to Abraham would be worth nothing. ¹⁵ God’s anger comes on a man when he does not obey the Law. But if there were no Law, then no one could break it.

¹⁶ So God’s promise is given to us because we put our trust in Him. We can be sure of it. It is because of His loving-favor to us. It is for all the family of Abraham. It is for those who obey the Law. It is for those who put their trust in God as Abraham did. In this way, he is the father of all Christians. ¹⁷ The Holy Writings say, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This promise is good because of Who God is. He makes the dead live again. He speaks, and something is made out of nothing. ¹⁸ Abraham believed he would be the father of many nations. He had no reason to hope for this, but he had been told, “Your children will become many nations.” ^{(D) 19} Abraham was about one hundred years old. His body was about dead, but his faith in God was not weak when he thought of his body. His faith was not weak when he thought of his wife Sarah being past the age of having children. ²⁰ Abraham did not doubt God’s promise. His faith in God was strong, and he gave thanks to God. ²¹ He was sure God was able to do what He had promised. ²² Abraham put his trust in God and was made right with Him. ²³ The words, “He was made right with God,” were not for Abraham only. ²⁴ They were for us also. God will make us right with Himself the same way He did Abraham, if we put our trust in God Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ²⁵ Jesus died for our sins. He was raised from the dead to make us right with God.