Imprecatory Prayer

Discussion on creating and maintaining Conflicts of Law
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notmartha
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Imprecatory Prayer

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The following article, first published in 1996 by Jeff Ziegler, explains the duty of Christians to pray imprecatory prayers.

Imprecatory Prayer! - The Church's Duty Against Her Enemies
http://www.forerunner.com/puritan/PS.Prayer.html
There is a communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience, where necessity so demands, that what they believed was not vain, although he had promised it in word alone.
– John Calvin

Introduction

This grand description of the legislative dynamic of prayer as taken from Calvin’s introduction to the subject in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” is an essential foundation for the Church to recover if she is to resolutely and effectively exercise her parliamentary role in the earth.

Explicitly, this “communion of men” reach into the very seat of all governmental authority in heaven and earth through prayer. These prayers are marked not by sentimentality, mystical expression, nor monastic vain babbling. Rather from this lofty plane, they make appeal to the Father through Christ concerning divine legislation, chiefly, that which God has promised to perform in His Law-Word. As depicted, the Church, this “house of prayer for all nations” is asking the “God who keeps covenant forever” to execute his Word “where necessity so demands” thus advancing the Kingdom on “Earth as it is Heaven.”

The aim here is not that the Church should pray for indeed she must even “without ceasing.” Rather the stress is upon the legislative content of prayer. That is for the Church to rightly function in her governmental capacity, she must through prayer and public proclamation legislate God’s will, as revealed alone in Scripture, on earth, thus enforcing the Crown Rights of Christ over all of life.

Again I must stress, that the body and form of these legislative prayers are not subjective and cannot be formed by human instrumentality no matter how noble the thought may be. Rather such praying must be founded upon all that God has vouched to effect exclusively in the inspired and infallible Law-Word of God. God’s written Word is peerless in that it alone is divinely guaranteed not to “return void” and to “accomplish that which I (God) please” even to “prosper in the thing whereto I (God) sent it.”

Positive and Negative Sanctions

The promises of God could be defined as anything that God has vouched to perform. Specifically, the promises of Scripture are grouped throughout in covenantal structures. Within these structures, God promises blessings both spiritual and material for those, who, in the long term, obey His statutes. Through this inheritance of blessing, God multiplies and increases His covenant people, so that in turn, they may advance His purposes in the earth. Just as crucial to understand is that within the same covenantal structures, God promises negative sanctions both spiritual and material for those, who, in the long term, transgress and mock His Law. Thus through the covenantal curse, the wicked are disinherited in history. Through this dynamic of blessing and negative sanctions, the righteous accrue dominion in the earth.

As an example of the covenantal foundations of Scripture we examine the structure of Deuteronomy 28.

The first verse exhorts the Israelite nation to hear, observe, and perform all the commandments which God had given for the expressed purpose of setting her high above all the nations of the earth. Then in the next 13 verses, all the blessings that were to be accrued in relation to their obedience are delineated. Literally blessings are conferred which are coextensive with all of life both spiritual and material and all given with the end of blessing the nations of the earth. However, in the 15th verse the transition to negative sanctions (curses) occurs.

From this point until the end of the chapter, temporal but very real curses are delineated for long term disobedience and covenant breaking. Thus, the negative sanctions exist to disinherit, diminish and eventually destroy wicked unrepentant individuals and nations.

If then the church is to pray and make proclamation covenantally, she must embrace the statutes of Scripture, both the blessings and the curses. For both are inspired by God and necessary for the work of Divine governance.

King David At War

David the warrior king, was a man of covenant who approached civil polity and spiritual worship, with a firm understanding of positive and negative sanctions. Witness the first Psalm. David extols the virtues of the righteous man who delights in God’s Law. He declares blessing and strength for the lawkeeper. The righteous man is described as a tree planted by the water, which brings forth its fruit in due season, whose leaf does not wither. This man is shown to be prospering in “whatsoever he doeth”.

However, David goes on to describe the lawbreaker as one who under the crushing weight of Divine wrath, becomes chaff driven by the wind, who cannot endure the judgement and will by virtue of his wickedness, perish from the earth.

This covenantal understanding is paramount if we are to comprehend, embrace, and emulate David’s imprecatory war Psalms and recapture our lawless society.

Let us examine the controversial 109th Psalm. David is at prayer warring against the enemies of God. In verses 4 and 5, David gives himself to prayer and describes his enemies as those who act with disdain for God and righteousness. From this forensic, legal ground he proceeds to proclaim and enforce the covenantal negative sanctions against these very same enemies in verses 6 through 29.

It is important to note that David is merely applying God’s Law to specific conditions. That is each imprecation found in this Psalm is directly related to definite covenantal sanctions.

There is nothing of David here!

All of his utterance is being inspired by God and applied to very real circumstances. Yet to the casual observer, the language is harsh even hateful. Indeed, this has caused great bewilderment for many learned men who have tried to reconcile such praying with the love ethic of Christ. C.S. Lewis for example found these Davidic imprecatory prayers so offensive that he ascribed them to demonic authorship. C.I. Scofield while not as brazen as Lewis, nevertheless asserts that the imprecatory Psalms amount to something of a Davidic temper tantrum, which under the “old dispensation” was excusable, yet in the “new” is less than desirable behavior.

While these views are common, they are also heretical and in the case of Lewis, blasphemous. Certainly these views (Lewis in particular), fail to take into account that God’s Word is Divinely inspired, infallible, and immutable. Secondly, they fail to understand the covenantal continuity of both Old and New Testaments. What this means practically, is that unless the New Testament specifically changes, modifies, or nullifies an Old Testament principle, that principle is still in effect and is binding. Mr. Scofield and the adherents of dispensational thought find this proper covenantal hermeneutic somewhat disturbing in that it strips away the convoluted notions that the New Testament saint should never act “harsh and hateful” as David. However, David is not praying these prayers autonomously, but rather under Divine inspiration. Thus to assert that David is motivated by hate is to charge the God of Old and New Testaments with maniacal intentions.

Truly, many pietistic clergyman have maintained that the God of the Old Testament is full of wrath and hate and yet the very same God is full of sentiment and love in the New Testament. Rather than a Biblical depiction of the God who “is the same yesterday, today, and forever”, their perception is of a truncated and schizophrenic deity who maintains an identity crises replete with subjective, mercurial and arbitrary actions.

Due to these views, the pietistic, antinomian, dispensationalist framework denies any possibility of enforcing negative sanctions in the temporal yet inconsistently and hypocritically affirms Divine wrath in eternity. Such incongruent thinking is typical of anticovenantalists.

The New Testament Speaks!

Another strange omission by these anemic evangelicals are the numerous imprecations which are found in the New Testament directly from the lips of Jesus and the apostles. For example, In Matthew 23 verses 13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 27, and 29, Christ unleashes a crushing cannonade upon the Pharisees in the form of a seven-fold curse upon their heads! Is this utterance inharmonious with the love of God?

Certainly not!

Rather this is a loving warning of the sure and swift negative sanctions that are about to fall upon those who have prostituted the Law of God if they do not repent. In fact Christ is delivering a covenantal lawsuit that will arrest their miscreant behavior either through repentance or horrific judgement.

Also, the apostle Paul declares anathema (eternal destruction) upon anyone “who loves not the Lord Jesus” in I Cor. 16:22. Again Paul grapples with heretics who were seeking to pervert the church at Galatia when he pronounces a curse upon them in Galatians 1:8 and again praying that they would be emasculated, neutered lest their heresy reproduce in chapter 5:12. In II Timothy 4:14 Paul invokes covenantal theology when he declares that Alexander the metal worker be repaid according to his deeds. Alexander resisted and caused great damage to Paul’s ministry.

Question:- Is this the same Paul who authored the great love chapter namely I Corinthians 13?

Yes, indeed and the same God who moved upon him with Divine inspiration!

Real Protestants Fight!

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.
- 2 Corinthians 10:4

Our Protestant forefathers embraced covenantal imprecatory prayer as a potent and Divine weapon that would demolish all opposition to the advance of the Kingdom of Christ. They were not a squeamish lot, and were fully prepared to prosecute the war against the lawless.

We should pray that our enemies be converted and become our friends, and if not, that their doing and designing be bound to fail and have no success and that their persons perish rather than the Gospel and the Kingdom of Christ.
- Martin Luther

If any of the enemies of God’s people belong to God’s election, the Church’s prayer against them giveth way to their conversion, and seeketh no more than that the judgement should follow them, only until they acknowledge their sin, turn, and seek God.
- David Dickson

Dear saints it is time to stand upon the covenants of Scripture. It is time to rise and strike for the advance of the Gospel. No shirkers nor cowards need apply. The call of Divine government is upon you. Will you be girded with terrible resolution as David? Will you join the “communion of men with God? Will you exercise dominion? I pray so for the sake of your children and our republic.

SOLDIERS OF CHRIST ARISE!
During the month of January, I'll be providing examples of imprecatory prayers straight from the Scriptures to use as you are led by the Spirit.
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notmartha
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Imprecatory Prayer Day 1

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 1


Psalm 5:1-12 (KJV)
1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.
5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
7 But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
8 Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.
9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.
10 Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.
11 But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.
12 For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.
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notmartha
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Imprecatory Prayer Day 2

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 2

Psalm 6:1-10 (KJV)

1 O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
2 Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
3 My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long?
4 Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?
6 I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
7 Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.
8 Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.
9 The LORD hath heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer.
10 Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed suddenly.
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Re: Imprecatory Prayer Day 3

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 3


Psalm 9:1-20 (KJV)

1 I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.
2 I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High.
3 When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence.
4 For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right.
5 Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.
6 O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.
7 But the LORD shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment.
8 And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.
9 The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.
10 And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.
11 Sing praises to the LORD, which dwelleth in Zion: declare among the people his doings.
12 When he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them: he forgetteth not the cry of the humble.
13 Have mercy upon me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death:
14 That I may shew forth all thy praise in the gates of the daughter of Zion: I will rejoice in thy salvation.
15 The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.
16 The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.
17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
18 For the needy shall not alway be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.
19 Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight.
20 Put them in fear, O LORD: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah
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notmartha
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Imprecatory Prayer Day 4

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 4


Psalm 10:1-18 (KJV)

1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?
2 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
3 For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.
4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.
5 His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.
6 He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.
7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
8 He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
9 He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.
10 He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.
11 He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.
12 Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.
13 Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.
14 Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.
16 The LORD is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.
17 LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:
18 To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.
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Imprecatory Prayer Day 5

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 5


Psalm 25:1-22 (KJV)

1 Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.
2 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.
3 Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.
4 Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.
5 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.
6 Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.
8 Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way.
9 The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.
10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.
11 For thy name's sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
12 What man is he that feareth the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
13 His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.
14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.
15 Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
16 Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.
17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses.
18 Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.
19 Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred.
20 O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.
21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.
22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.
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Re: Imprecatory Prayer

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 6


Psalms 28

1 <A Psalm of David.> Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
3 Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.
4 Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.
5 Because they regard not the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.
6 Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.
8 The LORD is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.
9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up for ever.
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notmartha
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Re: Imprecatory Prayer

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 7


Psalm 31:1-24 (KJV)

1 In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.
2 Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
3 For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me.
4 Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength.
5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
6 I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the LORD.
7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities;
8 And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.
9 Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.
10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
11 I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.
12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.
13 For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.
14 But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God.
15 My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.
16 Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies' sake.
17 Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.
18 Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.
19 Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!
20 Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.
21 Blessed be the LORD: for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong city.
22 For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.
23 O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.
24 Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.
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Re: Imprecatory Prayer

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 8

Psalms 35

1 <A Psalm of David.> Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me.
2 Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help.
3 Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.
4 Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.
5 Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the LORD chase them.
6 Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the LORD persecute them.
7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall.
9 And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation.
10 All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him?
11 False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.
12 They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul.
13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom.
14 I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother.
15 But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not:
16 With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.
17 Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions.
18 I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people.
19 Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause.
20 For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.
21 Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it.
22 This thou hast seen, O LORD: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me.
23 Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord.
24 Judge me, O LORD my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.
25 Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him up.
26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.
27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
28 And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long.
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Re: Imprecatory Prayer

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Imprecatory Prayer Day 9


Psalms 40

1 <To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.> I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
4 Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
5 Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,
8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.
11 Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.
12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.
14 Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil.
15 Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.
16 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified.
17 But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
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