Psalm 69:17-29 “Don’t hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Answer me speedily! Draw near to my soul and redeem it. Ransom me because of my enemies. You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before you. Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none. They also gave me poison for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table before them become a snare. May it become a retribution and a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they can’t see. Let their backs be continually bent. Pour out your indignation on them. Let the fierceness of your anger overtake them. Let their habitation be desolate. Let no one dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom you have wounded. They tell of the sorrow of those whom you have hurt. Charge them with crime upon crime. Don’t let them come into your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous. But I am in pain and distress. Let your salvation, God, protect me.”

Instead of David, imagine that this is from Jesus’ perspective.

Matthew 27:46 “About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?’ That is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ ”

Matthew 27:48 “Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink.”

Jesus would certainly have had reason to pray this. To call down retribution on His enemies. To feel the way that we sometimes feel in this life. But what did He do?

Luke 23:34 “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’ “

In truth, Jesus died so that we wouldn’t be blotted out from the book of life! Unfortunately, most are, because they don’t believe.

For additional worship: Last Words (Andrew Peterson)