Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees.
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.
There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.
But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus,
so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.
Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands.
But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.
When the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it approved,
I chose their way and sat as chief, and I lived like a king among his troops, like one who comforts mourners.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.
The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.