And darkness was under his feet.

And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly:
Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his secret place;

His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed,

Hail stones and coals of fire.

The Lord also thundered in the heavens,

And the Highest gave his voice;

Hail stones and coals of fire.

Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; And he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters were seen,

And the foundations of the world were discovered At thy rebuke, O Lord,

At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

He sent from above, he took me,

He drew me out of many waters.

He delivered me from my strong enemy,
And from them which hated me:

For they were too strong for me.

They prevented me in the day of my calamity:
But the Lord was my stay.

He brought me forth also into a large place;

He delivered me, because he delighted in me.

The Lord rewarded me according to my righteous

ness;

According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.

For I have kept the ways of the Lord,

And have not wickedly departed from my God.

The Deliverer.

For all his judgments were before me,
And I did not put away his statutes from me.
I was also upright before him,

And I kept myself from mine iniquity.

151

Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness,

According to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.

With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; With an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright; With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure;

And with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward. For thou wilt save the afflicted people;

But wilt bring down high looks.

For thou wilt light my candle:

The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
For by thee I have run through a troop;

And by my God have I leaped over a wall.
As for God his way is perfect:

The word of the Lord is tried:

He is a buckler to all those that trust in him.

For who is God save the Lord?

Or who is a rock save our God?

It is God that girdeth me with strength,

And maketh my way perfect.

Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation:
And thy right hand hath holden me up,
And thy gentleness hath made me great.
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me,
That my feet did not slip.

The Lord liveth; and blessed be my Rock;
And let the God of my salvation be exalted.

Psalm 18: 1-32, 35-36, 46.

CXXX.

The Bearer of Sorrow, Weakness and Sin.

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

The Voice in the Wilderness.

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Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

CXXXI.

The Voice in the Wilderness.

Isaiah 53.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.

Isaiah 40: 3-8.

He

Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?

With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance : behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

CXXXII.

The Holy One.

Isaiah 40: 10-15, 17.

Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and