Readings for Lent and Easter

⁴ More in number than the hairs of my head
    are those who hate me without cause;
mighty are those who would destroy me,
    those who attack me with lies.
What I did not steal
    must I now restore?
⁵ O God, thou knowest my folly;
    the wrongs I have done are not hidden from thee.

⁶ Let not those who hope in thee be put to shame through me,
    O Lord God of hosts;
let not those who seek thee be brought to dishonor through me,
    O God of Israel.
⁷ For it is for thy sake that I have borne reproach,
    that shame has covered my face.
⁸ I have become a stranger to my brethren,
    an alien to my mother’s sons.

⁹ For zeal for thy house has consumed me,
    and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen on me.
¹⁰ When I humbled^[a] my soul with fasting,
    it became my reproach.
¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing,
    I became a byword to them.
¹² I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,
    and the drunkards make songs about me.