For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” ¹  and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ² 

listen from heaven and make a just decision about your servants’ claims. Condemn the guilty party, declare the other innocent, and give both of them what they deserve. ¹ 

So I said to the Lord, ¹  “O Lord who rules over all, ²  you are a just judge! You examine people’s hearts and minds. ³  I want to see you pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause.” ⁴ 

I said, ¹  “Lord, you know how I suffer. ²  Take thought of me and care for me. Pay back for me those who have been persecuting me. Do not be so patient with them that you allow them to kill me. Be mindful of how I have put up with their insults for your sake.

O Lord who rules over all, ¹  you test and prove the righteous. You see into people’s hearts and minds. ²  Pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause.

and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women ¹  and were inflamed in their passions ²  for one another. Men ³  committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be in fear, for it does not bear the sword in vain. It is God’s servant to administer retribution on the wrongdoer.

But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ¹  It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ²  His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied! It will drink their blood until it is full! ³  For the Lord God who rules over all ⁴  will offer them up as a sacrifice in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

The ¹  nations ²  were enraged, but ³  your wrath has come, and the time has come for the dead to be judged, and the time has come to give to your servants, ⁴  the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints and to those who revere ⁵  your name, both small and great, and the time has come ⁶  to destroy those who destroy ⁷  the earth.”