Teach me how you want me to live; ¹  lead me along a level path ²  because of those who wait to ambush me! ³ 

May those who want to harm me be totally embarrassed and ashamed! ¹  May those who arrogantly taunt me be covered with shame and humiliation! ² 

Those who seek my life try to entrap me; ¹  those who want to harm me speak destructive words; all day long they say deceitful things.

May those who are trying to snatch away my life be totally embarrassed and ashamed! ¹  May those who want to harm me be turned back and ashamed! ² 

I am surrounded by lions; I lie down ¹  among those who want to devour me; ²  men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are a sharp sword. ³ 

May those who are trying to take my life be embarrassed and ashamed! ¹  May those who want to harm me be turned back and ashamed! ² 

All day long my tongue will also tell about your justice, for those who want to harm me ¹  will be embarrassed and ashamed. ² 

I desperately want to be ¹  in the courts of the Lord’s temple. ²  My heart and my entire being ³  shout for joy to the living God.

O Lord, teach me how you want me to live! ¹  Then I will obey your commands. ²  Make me wholeheartedly committed to you! ³ 

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. ¹  Say, ²  ‘Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.

But they just keep saying, ‘We do not care what you say! ¹  We will do whatever we want to do! We will continue to behave wickedly and stubbornly!’” ² 

I will hand them over to their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. ¹ 

King Zedekiah said to them, “Very well, you can do what you want with him. ¹  For I cannot do anything to stop you.” ² 

This day ¹  I have told you what he said. ²  But you do not want to obey the Lord by doing what he sent me to tell you. ³ 

So now be very sure of this: You will die from war, starvation, or disease in the place where you want to go and live.”

I have appointed a time to reap judgment ¹  for you also, O Judah!Whenever I want to restore the fortunes of my people, ² 

We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, ¹  a pair of sandals ²  for the needy! We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!” ³ 

They confiscate the fields they desire, and seize the houses they want. ¹  They defraud people of their homes, ²  and deprive people of the land they have inherited. ³ 

He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a time of cessation from work, ¹  a holy Sabbath ²  to the Lord. Whatever you want to ³  bake, bake today; ⁴  whatever you want to boil, boil today; whatever is left put aside for yourselves to be kept until morning.’”

They seek me day after day; they want to know my requirements, ¹  like a nation that does what is right and does not reject the law of their God. They ask me for just decrees; they want to be near God.