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Psalms 10-12 (Listen)

Why Do You Hide Yourself?

10:1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
  let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
  and the one greedy for gain curses [1] and renounces the Lord.
In the pride of his face [2] the wicked does not seek him; [3]
  all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
His ways prosper at all times;
  your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
  as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
  throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
  under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
He sits in ambush in the villages;
  in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
  he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
  he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
The helpless are crushed, sink down,
  and fall by his might.
He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
  he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
  forget not the afflicted.
Why does the wicked renounce God
  and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
  that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
  you have been the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
  call his wickedness to account till you find none.

The Lord is king forever and ever;
  the nations perish from his land.
O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
  you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
  so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

The Lord Is in His Holy Temple

To the choirmaster. Of David.

11:1 In the Lord I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
  “Flee like a bird to your mountain,
for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
  they have fitted their arrow to the string
  to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
if the foundations are destroyed,
  what can the righteous do?” [4]

The Lord is in his holy temple;
  the Lord's throne is in heaven;
  his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
The Lord tests the righteous,
  but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
Let him rain coals on the wicked;
  fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
  the upright shall behold his face.

The Faithful Have Vanished

To the choirmaster: according to The Sheminith. [5] A Psalm of David.

12:1 Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone;
for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;
with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts,
those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?”

“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
  I will now arise,” says the Lord;
  “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
The words of the Lord are pure words,
  like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
  purified seven times.

You, O Lord, will keep them;
you will guard us [6] from this generation forever.
On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

Acts 17:16-34 (Listen)

Paul in Athens

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

Paul Addresses the Areopagus

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, [7] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’; [8]

as even some of your own poets have said,

“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ [9]

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

Footnotes

[1] 10:3 Or and he blesses the one greedy for gain
[2] 10:4 Or of his anger
[3] 10:4 Or the wicked says, “He will not call to account”
[4] 11:3 Or for the foundations will be destroyed; what has the righteous done?
[5] 12:1 Probably a musical or liturgical term
[6] 12:7 Or guard him
[7] 17:24 Greek made by hands
[8] 17:28 Probably from Epimenides of Crete
[9] 17:28 From Aratus's poem “Phainomena”