"REPROACHES HAVE BROKEN MY HEART"  Psalm 69 by Rev. Nolan Astley

Psalm 69

1Save me, O God!  For the waters have come up to my neck.  2I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. 3I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.  4More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies.  8 I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own mother’s children; 9 for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.  20Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair.  I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. 21They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.  22Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.  28Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous.  29But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high!  30I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.  33For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.  34Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them.  35For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and people shall dwell there and possess it; 36the offspring of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall dwell in it.