PSALM 123

A Song of Ascents.

1 To thee I lift up my eyes,

O thou who art enthroned in the heavens!

2 Behold, as the eyes of servants

look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maid

to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

till he have mercy upon us.

3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,

for we have had more than enough of contempt.

4 Too long our soul has been sated

with the scorn of those who are at ease,

the contempt of the proud.

PSALM 7

A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush a Benjaminite.

1 O Lord my God, in thee do I take refuge;

save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,

2 lest like a lion they rend me,

dragging me away, with none to rescue.

3 O Lord my God, if I have done this,

if there is wrong in my hands,

4 if I have requited my friend with evil

or plundered my enemy without cause,

5 let the enemy pursue me and overtake me,

and let him trample my life to the ground,

and lay my soul in the dust. [Selah]

6 Arise, O Lord, in thy anger,

lift thyself up against the fury of my enemies;

awake, O my God;b thou hast appointed a judgment.

7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about thee;

and over it take thy seatc on high.

8 The Lord judges the peoples;

judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness

and according to the integrity that is in me.

9 O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,

but establish thou the righteous,

thou who triest the minds and hearts,

thou righteous God.

10 My shield is with God,

who saves the upright in heart.

11 God is a righteous judge,

and a God who has indignation every day.

12 If a man* does not repent, God will whet his sword;

he has bent and strung his bow;

13 he has prepared his deadly weapons,

making his arrows fiery shafts.

14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil,

and is pregnant with mischief,

and brings forth lies.

15 He makes a pit, digging it out,

and falls into the hole which he has made.

16 His mischief returns upon his own head,

and on his own pate his violence descends.

17 I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,

and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

PSALM 8

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

1 O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is thy name in all the earth!

Thou whose glory above the heavens is chanted

2 by the mouth of babes and infants,

thou hast founded a bulwark because of thy foes,

to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,

the moon and the stars which thou hast established;

4 what is man that thou art mindful of him,

and the son of man that thou dost care for him?

5 Yet thou hast made him little less than God,

and dost crown him with glory and honor.

6 Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands;

thou hast put all things under his feet,

7 all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the sea.

9 O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is thy name in all the earth!