Psalms 7; Psalms 8; Psalms 9; Acts 18

1 Lord my God, I seek refuge in You; save me from all my pursuers and rescue me,

2 or they will tear me like a lion, ripping me apart, with no one to rescue me.

3 Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is injustice on my hands,

4 if I have done harm to one at peace with me or have plundered my adversary without cause,

5 may an enemy pursue and overtake me; may he trample me to the ground and leave my honor in the dust. Selah

6 Rise up, Lord, in Your anger; lift Yourself up against the fury of my adversaries; awake for me; You have ordained a judgment.

7 Let the assembly of peoples gather around You; take Your seat on high over it.

8 The Lord judges the peoples; vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness and my integrity.

9 Let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous. The One who examines the thoughts and emotions is a righteous God.

10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.

11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who executes justice every day.

12 If anyone does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has strung His bow and made it ready.

13 He has prepared His deadly weapons; He tips His arrows with fire.

14 See, he is pregnant with evil, conceives trouble, and gives birth to deceit.

15 He dug a pit and hollowed it out, but fell into the hole he had made.

16 His trouble comes back on his own head, and his violence falls on the top of his head.

17 I will thank the Lord for His righteousness; I will sing about the name of the Lord, the Most High.

1 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with Your majesty.

2 Because of Your adversaries, You have established a stronghold from the mouths of children and nursing infants, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I observe Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You set in place,

4 what is man that You remember him, the son of man that You look after him?

5 You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You made him lord over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet:

7 all the sheep and oxen, as well as animals in the wild,

8 birds of the sky, and fish of the sea passing through the currents of the seas.

9 Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth!

1 I will thank the Lord with all my heart; I will declare all Your wonderful works.

2 I will rejoice and boast about You; I will sing about Your name, Most High.

3 When my enemies retreat, they stumble and perish before You.

4 For You have upheld my just cause; You are seated on Your throne as a righteous judge.

5 You have rebuked the nations: You have destroyed the wicked; You have erased their name forever and ever.

6 The enemy has come to eternal ruin; You have uprooted the cities, and the very memory of them has perished.

7 But the Lord sits enthroned forever; He has established His throne for judgment.

8 He judges the world with righteousness; He executes judgment on the peoples with fairness.

9 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.

10 Those who know Your name trust in You because You have not abandoned those who seek You, Lord.

11 Sing to the Lord, who dwells in Zion; proclaim His deeds among the peoples.

12 For the One who seeks an accounting for bloodshed remembers them; He does not forget the cry of the afflicted.

13 Be gracious to me, Lord; consider my affliction at the hands of those who hate me. Lift me up from the gates of death,

14 so that I may declare all Your praises. I will rejoice in Your salvation within the gates of Daughter Zion.

15 The nations have fallen into the pit they made; their foot is caught in the net they have concealed.

16 The Lord has revealed Himself; He has executed justice, striking down the wicked by the work of their hands. Higgaion. Selah

17 The wicked will return to Sheol- all the nations that forget God.

18 For the oppressed will not always be forgotten; the hope of the afflicted will not perish forever.

19 Rise up, Lord! Do not let man prevail; let the nations be judged in Your presence.

20 Put terror in them, Lord; let the nations know they are only men. Selah

1 After this, he left from Athens and went to Corinth,

2 where he found a Jewish man named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius 41-54; he expelled all Jews from Rome in a.d. 49. had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul came to them,

3 and being of the same occupation, stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.

4 He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks.

5 When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with preaching the message and solemnly testified to the Jews that the Messiah is Jesus.

6 But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes and told them, "Your blood is on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles."

7 So he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.

8 Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed the Lord, along with his whole household; and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized.

9 Then the Lord said to Paul in a night vision, "Don't be afraid, but keep on speaking and don't be silent.

10 For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city."

11 And he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

12 While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack against Paul and brought him to the judge's bench.

13 "This man," they said, "persuades people to worship God contrary to the law!"

14 And as Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it were a matter of a crime or of moral evil, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you Jews.

15 But if these are questions about words, names, and your own law, see to it yourselves. I don't want to be a judge of such things."

16 So he drove them from the judge's bench.

17 Then they all seized Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the judge's bench. But none of these things concerned Gallio.

18 So Paul, having stayed on for many days, said good-bye to the brothers and sailed away to Syria. Priscilla and Aquila were with him. He shaved his head at Cenchreae, because he had taken a vow.

19 When they reached Ephesus he left them there, but he himself entered the synagogue and engaged in discussion with the Jews.

20 And though they asked him to stay for a longer time, he declined,

21 but said good-bye and stated, "I'll come back to you again, if God wills." Then he set sail from Ephesus.

22 On landing at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church, and went down to Antioch.

23 And [after] spending some time there, he set out, traveling through one place after another in the Galatian territory and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

24 A Jew named Apollos, a native Alexandrian, an eloquent man who was powerful in the Scriptures, arrived in Ephesus.

25 This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught the things about Jesus accurately, although he knew only John's baptism.

26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. After Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him home and explained the way of God to him more accurately.

27 When he wanted to cross over to Achaia, the brothers wrote to the disciples urging them to welcome him. After he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace.

28 For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating through the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah.