Part 341 (1/2)

30:11. For my life is wasted with grief: and my years in sighs. My strength is weakened through poverty and my bones are disturbed.

30:12. I am become a reproach among all my enemies, and very much to my neighbours; and a fear to my acquaintance. They that saw me without fled from me.

30:13. I am forgotten as one dead from the heart. I am become as a vessel that is destroyed.

30:14. For I have heard the blame of many that dwell round about. While they a.s.sembled together against me, they consulted to take away my life.

30:15. But I have put my trust in thee, O Lord: I said: Thou art my G.o.d.

30:16. My lots are in thy hands. Deliver me out of the hands of my enemies; and from them that persecute me.

30:17. Make thy face to s.h.i.+ne upon thy servant; save me in thy mercy.

30:18. Let me not be confounded, O Lord, for I have called upon thee.

Let the wicked be ashamed, and be brought down to h.e.l.l.

30:19. Let deceitful lips be made dumb. Which speak iniquity against the just, with pride and abuse.

30:20. O how great is the mult.i.tude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which thou hast hidden for them that fear thee! Which thou hast wrougth for them that hope inthee, in the sight of the sons of men.

30:21. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy face, from the disturbance of men. Thoushalt protect them in thy tabernacle form the contradiction of tongues.

30:22. Blessed be the Lord, for he hath shewn his wonderful mercy to me in a fortified city.

30:23. But I said in the excess of my mind: I am cast away from before thy eyes. Therefore thou hast heard the voice of my prayer, when I cried to thee.

30:24. O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord will require truth, and will repay them abundantly that act proudly.

30:25. Do ye manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, all ye that hope in the Lord.

Psalms Chapter 31

Beati quorum.

The second penitential psalm.

31:1. To David himself, understanding. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

31:2. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not inputed sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

31:3. Because I was silent my bones grew old; whilst I cried out all the day long.

Because I was silent, etc... That is, whilst I kept silence, by concealing, or refusing to confess my sins, thy hand was heavy upon me, etc.

31:4. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: I am turned in my anguish, whilst the thorn is fastened.

I am turned, etc... That is, I turn and roll about in my bed to seek for ease in my pain whilst the thorn of thy justice pierces my flesh, and sticks fast in me. Or, I am turned: that is, I am converted to thee, my G.o.d, by being brought to a better understanding by thy chastis.e.m.e.nts. In the Hebrew it is, my moisture is turned into the droughts of the summer.

31:5. I have acknowledged my sin to thee, and my injustice I have not concealed. I said I will confess against my self my injustice to the Lord: and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin.