Psalm 13
New Catholic Bible
Psalm 13[a]
Prayer of One in Sorrow
1 For the director.[b] A psalm of David.
2 How long,[c] O Lord—will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
3 How long must I suffer anguish in my soul
and sorrow in my heart[d] day and night?
How long will my enemy lord it over me?
4 Look upon me, O Lord, my God, and answer me;
enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep in death,
5 lest my enemy say, “I have defeated him,”
and my foes exult in my collapse.
6 As for me, I trust in your kindness;[e]
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
7 I will sing to the Lord
because he has been good to me.[f]
Footnotes
- Psalm 13:1 The suffering psalmist cries out to God in despair over his impending death and the triumph of his enemies. Suddenly (perhaps after a religious experience of some kind), his tone changes; he speaks from a heart brimming with complete trust in God and voices his joy and gratitude.
In praying this psalm, we can think of Christ in his abandonment on the cross and provisional defeat by death, in the face of his enemies’ ephemeral success. We too experience the critical trial of God’s silence and apparent absence. Far from weakening our confidence in God, this eventuality should strengthen it. - Psalm 13:1 For the director: most likely a musical or liturgical notation.
- Psalm 13:2 How long: see note on Ps 6:4. Hide your face: when God hides his face, the righteous become concerned (see Pss 30:8; 104:29), for when God’s face shines on people it brings deliverance and blessings (see Pss 31:17; 67:2; 80:4; 119:135).
- Psalm 13:3 Heart: see note on Ps 4:8.
- Psalm 13:6 Kindness: see note on Ps 6:5.
- Psalm 13:7 The Septuagint and Vulgate add another line: “I will sing to the name of the Lord most high.”
Habakkuk 1
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 1
1 [a]This is the oracle that the prophet Habakkuk received in a vision.
Habakkuk’s Discussion with God
2 How long, O Lord, must I cry for help
while you do not listen?
I cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you refuse to intervene.
3 Why do you make me witness wrongdoing
and confront me with wickedness?
Destruction and violence confront me;
strife is everywhere, and discord abounds.
4 As a result, the law becomes ineffective
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
and judgment becomes perverted.
5 “Gaze upon the nations and see.
You will be amazed, even astounded.
You will not believe it when you are told
what I am doing in your days.
6 For I am stirring up the Chaldeans,
that savage and unruly people,
who march across the whole earth
to seize dwellings of other people.
7 They inspire fear and terror,
and they impose justice and judgment
according to their own standards.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards
and more frightening than wolves at dusk.
Their horses gallop on,
with riders advancing from far away,
swooping like eagles to devour their prey.
9 They are all bent on violence,
a horde moving steadily forward like an east wind;
they scoop up captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings,
they despise rulers.
They regard every fortress with contempt,
as they build earthen ramps to conquer it.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and are gone,
as they ascribe their strength to their god.”
12 “O Lord, are you not from everlasting,
my holy God, you who are immortal?
You have marked them for judgment, O Lord;
you, O Rock, have designated them for punishment.
13 Your eyes are too pure to gaze upon evil,
and you cannot countenance wrongdoing.
Why then do you remain silent
as you gaze on the treachery of the wicked,
watching them while they devour
those who are more righteous?
14 You have made men like the fish of the sea,
like crawling creatures without a ruler.
15 The wicked haul all of them up with a hook
or catch them in a net.
They gather them up in a seine,
and then rejoice and exult.
16 Therefore, the wicked offer sacrifice to their net
and burn incense to their seine,
for, thanks to them, they live sumptuously
and enjoy elegant food.
17 Shall they then be allowed
to draw their sword unceasingly,
and to slaughter nations without mercy?
Footnotes
- Habakkuk 1:1 Habakkuk encounters the great problem of evil: among peoples and individuals, the strong always oppress the weak, unless God intervenes. The prophets explain the situation by seeing oppressors as the instruments of God’s anger who punish the sin of the people. Like Job, Habakkuk rejects such an explanation as overly simplistic.
