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.
For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.
I use the King James Version of the Bible quite often, because it makes me think. It makes me go to the Greek or Hebrew and find out exactly what “compasseth about” means! The KJV word choice is perfection, as far as language can achieve that, except that we have little reference for the phrase.
“Lord God, we could look in any translation and get a glorious sense of what You say here: there are those You defend, those You bless, those You satiate with Your favor.
“But Father! We have been looking into the lives and even into the souls of those who are not upright, some of them far from it, those who are everything from lazy and shiftless to destroyers on the earth. We say, if You yet care about them, we will, too. If You have favor for them, if You might yet deliver and defend them, we want in, in prayer! Your favor would BE their defense, if only they knew it!
“How solemn is the thought that, with You, slothfulness is kin to destruction. And whom among us can say we’ve never been lazy or good-for-nothing for a season? Truly, Your Kingdom is upside down in its right side-up-ness! And Lord God, it is particularly difficult to rise above fatherlessness, motherlessness, abandonment, poverty, and shame. Deliver them, deliver us, send Your Word and heal them, and deliver them from their destructions! (Psalm 107:20) Deliver us from our apathies, our spiritual sloth!
Whoever is slothful in his work is brother to him who destroys. (Proverbs 18:9, BSB)
Every one who sins, every law breaker, got that way, some in nearly unseen measure, and some on death row. If they can become Desperate, by Your grace they can become Delivered and Discipled. For them, we pray. Amen.”
Michael the Arch Angel, Guido Reni, by permission, death of the artist + 100, Wikipedia
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