Psalms 119:61

Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”

Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

Don’t say, “I will pay back evil.” Wait for Yahweh, and he will save you.

It isn’t good to have zeal without knowledge, nor being hasty with one’s feet and missing the way.

Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees, while his father Terah was still alive.

You shall say before Yahweh your God, “I have put away the holy things out of my house, and also have given them to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commandment which you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, neither have I forgotten them.

Now for a long time Israel was without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law.

Show your marvelous loving kindness, you who save those who take refuge by your right hand from their enemies.

He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

For without cause they have hidden their net in a pit for me. Without cause they have dug a pit for my soul.

The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I haven’t gone astray from your precepts.

The lips of the righteous feed many, but the foolish die for lack of understanding.

The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t consider.”

For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.

There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.

For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its fortresses.”

“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?

Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you; for you have rejected Yahweh’s word, and Yahweh has rejected you from being king over Israel.”

Someone told David, saying, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” David said, “Yahweh, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”

My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

In the shelter of your presence you will hide them from the plotting of man. You will keep them secretly in a dwelling away from the strife of tongues.

They also who seek after my life lay snares. Those who seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and meditate deceits all day long.

Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the noisy crowd of the ones doing evil;

They encourage themselves in evil plans. They talk about laying snares secretly. They say, “Who will see them?”

My zeal wears me out, because my enemies ignore your words.

Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me, from the traps of the workers of iniquity.

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, you knew my route. On the path in which I walk, they have hidden a snare for me.

Take me away with you. Let’s hurry. The king has brought me into his rooms. We will be glad and rejoice in you. We will praise your love more than wine! They are right to love you.

All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit.

Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the Yahweh’s way, nor the law of their God.

Yahweh said to me, “A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it.

My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill. Yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth. There was no one who searched or sought.”

They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

“Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.

When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.

According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me.

But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

But he answered, “I wasn’t sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

See that no one returns evil for evil to anyone, but always follow after that which is good for one another and for all.

For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

They have prepared a net for my steps. My soul is bowed down. They dig a pit before me. They fall into the middle of it themselves.

With my whole heart, I have sought you. Don’t let me wander from your commandments.

For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke. I don’t forget your statutes.

I will never forget your precepts, for with them, you have revived me.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don’t forget your commandments.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people, those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.

When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.

They also reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are swallowed up by wine. They stagger with strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment.

“Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. Those have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear:

Should evil be recompensed for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.

Let a cry be heard from their houses when you bring a troop suddenly on them; for they have dug a pit to take me and hidden snares for my feet.

“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.

My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have caused them to go astray. They have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill. They have forgotten their resting place.

Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like a stick.

the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; all of them desirable young men, governors and rulers, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses.

“I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them in justice.” ’

I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me,” says Yahweh.

The rebels are deep in slaughter; but I discipline all of them.

For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

I wrote for him the many things of my law; but they were regarded as a strange thing.

For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, then where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? Says Yahweh of Armies to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, ‘How have we despised your name?’

Jesse became the father of King David. David became the father of Solomon by her who had been Uriah’s wife.

Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

“Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death.

‘These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

No one puts new wine into old wine skins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.

The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings out that which is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out that which is evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.

By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, why do you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental principles, to which you desire to be in bondage all over again?

You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow.

While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

Yahweh, how my adversaries have increased! Many are those who rise up against me.

They had almost wiped me from the earth, but I didn’t forsake your precepts.

The wicked have waited for me, to destroy me. I will consider your statutes.

The proud have hidden a snare for me, they have spread the cords of a net by the path. They have set traps for me.

Don’t say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will repay the man according to his work.”

As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.

At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale.

Neither do people put new wine into old wine skins, or else the skins would burst, and the wine be spilled, and the skins ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved.”