O Lord, Be Gracious to Me
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
1 eBlessed is the one who considers the poor!1
fIn the day of trouble the Lord delivers him;
2 the Lord protects him and keeps him alive;
he is called blessed in the land;
you gdo not give him up to the will of his enemies.
3 The Lord sustains him on his sickbed;
in his illness you restore him to full health.2
4 As for me, I said, “O Lord, hbe gracious to me;
iheal me,3 for I have sinned against you!”
5 My enemies say of me in malice,
“When will he die, and his name perish?”
6 And when one comes to see me, jhe utters empty words,
while his heart gathers iniquity;
when he goes out, he tells it abroad.
7 All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst for me.4
8 They say, “A deadly thing is poured out5 on him;
he will not rise again from where he lies.”
9 Even my kclose friend in whom I trusted,
who late my bread, has lifted his heel against me.
10 But you, O Lord, be gracious to me,
and raise me up, that I may repay them!
11 By this I know that myou delight in me:
my enemy will not shout in triumph over me.
13 rBlessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting!
Amen and Amen.
The Call of Abram
1 Now mthe Lord said1 to Abram, “Go from your country2 and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 nAnd I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 oI will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and pin you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”3
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from qHaran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram rpassed through the land to the place at Shechem, to sthe oak4 of tMoreh. At that time uthe Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, v“To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of wBethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.
Abram and Sarai in Egypt
10 Now xthere was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they ywill kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” 14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.
17 But the Lord zafflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
