The Berean Pursuit

"How long will you hunt for words?
Consider, and afterward we shall speak.
Why are we considered as animals?
Why are we taken as stupid in your eyes?
"You who are tearing yourself in your anger,
will the earth be forsaken because of you?
Or will the rock be removed from its place?
Furthermore, the light of the wicked is put out,
and the flame of his fire will not shine.
The light becomes dark in his tent,
and his lamp above him is put out.
"His strong steps are shortened,
and his own schemes throw him down,
for he is thrust into a net by his feet,
and he walks into a pitfall.
A trap seizes him by the heel;
a snare takes hold of him.
His rope is hidden in the ground,
and his trap on the path.
"Sudden terrors terrify him all around,
and they chase him at his heels.
His wealth will become hunger,
and disaster is ready for his stumbling.
It consumes parts of his skin;
the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.
He is torn from his tent in which he trusted,
and it brought him to the king of terrors.
"Nothing remains for him in his tent;
sulfur is scattered upon his dwelling place.
His roots dry up below,
and its branches wither away above.
His remembrance perishes from the earth,
and there is not a name for him on the street.
"They thrust him from light into darkness,
and they drive him out from the world.
There is no offspring for him nor a descendant among his people,
and there is not a survivor in his abode.
Those of the west are appalled over his fate,
and those of the east are seized with horror.
Surely these are the dwellings of the godless,
and this is the dwelling place of him who knows not God."

"How long will you torment me
and crush me with words?
These ten times you have disgraced me;
you are not ashamed that you have attacked me.
And what is more, if I have truly erred,
my error remains with me.
If indeed you must magnify yourselves against me,
and you must let my disgrace argue against me,
know then that God has wronged me
and has surrounded me with his net.
"Look, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;
I cry out, but there is no justice.
He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass;
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
He has taken my glory from me,
and he has removed the crown of my head.
He has broken me down all around, and I am gone.
And he has uprooted my hope like a tree,
and he has kindled his wrath against me,
and he has counted me as one of his foes.
His troops have come together
and have thrown up their rampart against me
and have encamped around my tent.
"He has removed my kinsfolk from me,
and my acquaintances have only turned aside from me.
My relatives have failed,
and my close friends have forgotten me.
The sojourners in my house and my slave women count me as a stranger;
I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
I call to my servant, but he does not answer;
I must personally plead with him.
My breath is repulsive to my wife,
and I am loathsome to my own family.
Little boys also despise me;
when I rise, then they talk against me.
All my intimate friends abhor me,
and these whom I have loved have turned against me.
My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
"Pity me, pity me, you my friends,
for God’s hand has touched me.
Why do you pursue me like God?
And are not satisfied with my flesh?
"O that my words could be written down!
O that they could be inscribed in a scroll!
That with a pen of iron and with lead
they might be engraved on a rock forever!
But I myself know that my redeemer is alive,
and at the last he will stand up upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
but from my flesh I will see God,
whom I will see for myself,
and whom my eyes will see and not a stranger.
My heart faints within me.
"If you say, ‘How will we persecute him?’
And ‘The root of the trouble is found’ in me,
be afraid for yourselves because of the sword,
for wrath brings punishment by the sword,
so that you may know that there is judgment."

"Therefore my disquieting thoughts bring me back
for the sake of my inward excitement.
I hear discipline that insults me,
and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
"Did you know this from of old,
since the setting of the human being on earth,
that the rejoicing of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless lasts only a moment?
Even though his stature mounts up to the heaven,
and his head reaches to the clouds,
he will perish forever like his dung;
those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’
He will fly away like a dream, and they will not find him,
and he will be chased away like a vision of the night.
The eye that saw him will not see him again,
and his place will no longer behold him.
His children will seek favors from the poor,
and his hands will return his wealth.
His bones were full of his vigor,
but it will lie down with him on the dust.
"Though wickedness tastes sweet in his mouth,
and he hides it under his tongue,
though he spares it and does not let it go
and holds it back in the midst of his palate,
in his bowels his food is turned,
the venom of horned vipers is within him.
He swallows riches, but he vomits them up;
God drives them out from his stomach.
He will suck the poison of horned vipers;
the viper’s tongue will kill him.
He will not enjoy the streams,
the torrents of honey and curds.
Returning the products of his toil, he will not swallow;
according to the profit of his trade, he will not enjoy,
for he has oppressed; he has abandoned the poor;
he has seized a house but did not build it.
Because he has not known satisfaction in his stomach,
he lets nothing escape that he desires.
There is nothing left after he has eaten;
therefore his prosperity will not endure.
In the fullness of his excess he will be in distress;
all of misery’s power will come upon him.
When his stomach fills up, God will send his burning anger upon him,
and he will let it rain down upon him as his food.
"He will flee from an iron weapon,
but an arrow of bronze will pierce him.
He draws it forth, and it comes out from his body,
and the glittering point comes from his gall-bladder;
terrors come upon him.
Total darkness is hidden for his treasures;
an unfanned fire will devour him;
the remnant will be consumed in his tent.
The heavens will reveal his guilt,
and the earth will rise up against him.
The products of his house will be carried away
like gushing waters on the day of his wrath.
This is a wicked human being’s portion from God
and the inheritance of his decree from God."

I call on you, O Yahweh; hasten to me.
Listen to my voice when I call to you.
Let my prayer be set before you as incense,
the lifting up of my palms as the evening offering.
Set a guard, O Yahweh, over my mouth;
keep watch over the door of my lips.
Do not incline my heart to any evil thing,
to practice wicked deeds
with men who do iniquity;
and do not let me eat of their delicacies.
Let a righteous one strike me in kindness,
and let him chasten me.
It is oil for my head; let not my head refuse.
For still my prayer is against their evil deeds.
When their judges are thrown down the sides of a cliff,
then they will understand that my words were pleasant.
As when one plows and breaks up the earth,
so our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
But my eyes are toward you, O Yahweh, my Lord;
I have taken refuge in you. Do not lay bare my soul.
Protect me from the grasp of the trap they have laid for me,
and from the snares of evildoers.
Let the wicked fall into their nets,
while I escape altogether.

"Great and marvelous are your works,
    Lord God All-Powerful;
righteous and true are your ways,
    King of the ages!
Who would never fear, Lord,
    and glorify your name?
For only you are holy,
    because all the nations will come
    and worship before you,
because your righteous deeds have been revealed."