In You Do I Take Refuge
A lShiggaion1 of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite.
1 O Lord my God, in you do I mtake refuge;
nsave me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
2 lest like oa lion they tear my soul apart,
rending it in pieces, with pnone to deliver.
3 O Lord my God, qif I have done this,
if there is rwrong in my hands,
4 if I have repaid smy friend2 with evil
or tplundered my enemy without cause,
5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him utrample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust. Selah
6 vArise, O Lord, in your anger;
wlift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
xawake for me; you have appointed a judgment.
7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you;
over it return on high.
8 The Lord yjudges the peoples;
zjudge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and may you establish the righteous—
you who atest bthe minds and hearts,3
O righteous God!
10 My shield is cwith God,
who saves dthe upright in heart.
11 God is ea righteous judge,
and a God who feels findignation every day.
12 If a man4 does not repent, God5 will gwhet his sword;
he has hbent and ireadied his bow;
13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,
making his jarrows kfiery shafts.
14 Behold, the wicked man lconceives evil
and is lpregnant with mischief
and gives birth to lies.
15 He makes ma pit, digging it out,
and falls into the hole that he has made.
16 His nmischief returns upon his own head,
and on his own skull his violence descends.
17 I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,
and I will osing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.
Micah and the Levite
1 There was a man of tthe hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. 2 And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, u“Blessed be my son by the Lord.” 3 And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make va carved image and wa metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.” 4 So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother xtook 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into a carved image and a metal image. And it was in the house of Micah. 5 And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made yan ephod and zhousehold gods, and aordained1 one of his sons, who became his priest. 6 bIn those days there was no king in Israel. cEveryone did what was right in his own eyes.
7 Now there was a young man of dBethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. 8 And the man departed from the town of Bethlehem in Judah to sojourn where he could find a place. And as he journeyed, he came to ethe hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah. 9 And Micah said to him, “Where do you come from?” And he said to him, “I am a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah, and I am going to sojourn where I may find a place.” 10 And Micah said to him, “Stay with me, and be to me fa father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year and a suit of clothes and your living.” And the Levite went in. 11 And the Levite gwas content to dwell with the man, and the young man became to him like one of his sons. 12 And Micah hordained the Levite, and the young man ibecame his priest, and was in the house of Micah. 13 Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest.”
