1 Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God:
defend me from them that rise up against me.
2 Deliver me from the workers of iniquity,
and save me from bloody men.
3 For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul:
the mighty are gathered against me;
not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord.
4 They run and prepare themselves without my fault:
awake to help me, and behold.
5 Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel,
awake to visit all the heathen:
be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah.
6 They return at evening:
they make a noise like a dog,
and go round about the city.
7 Behold, they belch out with their mouth:
swords are in their lips:for who, say they, doth hear?
8 But thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them;
thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.
9 Because of his strength will I wait upon Thee:
for God is my defence.
10 The God of my mercy shall prevent me:
God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies.
11 Slay them not, lest my people forget:
scatter them by thy power;
and bring them down, O Lord our shield.
12 For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips
let them even be taken in their pride:
and for cursing and lying which they speak.
13 Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be:
and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob
unto the ends of the earth. Selah.
14 And at evening let them return;
and let them make a noise like a dog,
and go round about the city.
15 Let them wander up and down for meat,
and grudge if they be not satisfied.
16 But I will sing of Thy power;
yea, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning:
forThou hast been my defence
and refuge in the day of my trouble.
17 Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing:
for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy.
Comments by Joan Boney
Psalm 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
I cry out to God in my trouble. I don't know how God can reach me with the answer. But over and over God has reached me with the way to go in the midst of the problem. So I cry to HIM. My only hope is God. I am weak and cry out in weakness. And each time God brings the answer.
I cry out in weakness and am delivered in the strength of God's Word by HIS Spirit.
I do not curse the one who struck against me without cause. That person curses himself by the wrong he does.
When I was trying to excuse a woman who had treated me very badly, I was thinking maybe I was to blame for what she had done. Then God intervened and reminded me of something she had done which had nothing at all to do with me. The wrath she was encountering was because of her own wickedness and had nothing at all to do with me.
Jeremiah 17 ... 5 Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.