Old/New Testament
Psalm 105
1 Come, offer thanks to the Eternal; invoke His holy name.
Tell other people about the things He has done.
2 Sing songs of praise to Him;
tell stories of all His miracles.
3 Revel in His holy name.
May the hearts of the people who seek the Eternal celebrate and experience great joy.
4 Seek the Eternal and His power;
look to His face constantly.
5 Remember the wonderful things He has done,
His miracles and the wise decisions He has made,
6 O children of Abraham, His servant;
O children of Jacob, His chosen people!
7 He is the Eternal, our True God;
His justice extends to every corner of the earth.
8 He keeps His covenant promises forever
and remembers the word He spoke to a thousand generations—
9 The covenant He made with Abraham
and His sworn oath to Isaac, his son.
10 Then God confirmed it to Jacob—decreed it so—
to Israel He promised a never-ending covenant,
11 Saying, “I will give you the land of Canaan
as your part; it will be your inheritance.”
12 When God’s people were only a few in number—
indeed, very few—they were strangers in a foreign land.
13 They roamed from place to place,
from one kingdom to another.
14 God didn’t allow anyone to tyrannize them;
He rebuked kings in order to protect His people:
15 “Do not lay a hand on My anointed people;
do not do any harm to My prophets.”
16 He ordered famine to grip the land and
cut them off from their supply of bread.
17 But long before, He had sent a man ahead of them:
Joseph, who had been sold into slavery.[a]
18 At first, his masters shackled his feet with chains,
placed his neck into a collar of iron.
19 That was until the Eternal’s promises came to pass;
His word tested Joseph and proved him worthy.
20 The king sent out the order to release him from prison;
the ruler of Egypt liberated him from the chains.
21 Then he put Joseph in charge of the royal household,
made him ruler of all the royal possessions,
22 Allowed him to imprison the royal officials whenever he saw fit
and impart wisdom to the elders in the land.
23 Then, when the time was right, Israel also went to Egypt;
Jacob resided as an alien in the land of Ham.
24 And while they were there, the Eternal made His people prosperous;
He made them stronger than their enemies.
25 He turned the Egyptians’ hearts against His people[b]
to cheat and scheme against His servants.
26 Then, He sent His servant Moses
and Aaron, the men He had chosen.
27 They did all the signs He planned for them to do among the Egyptians,
and they performed miracles in the land of Ham.
28 He sent darkness to cover the land;
they did not stray from His word.
29 At His command, their waters turned to blood;
their fish began to die.
30 Throngs of frogs covered the land,
invading even in the chambers of their kings.
31 At His command, a swarm of flies arrived,
and gnats came over all their land.
32 He caused hail to fall instead of rain;
lightning flashed over all their land.
33 He struck their vines and their fig trees;
He destroyed the trees over all their land.
34 At His command, locusts came;
young locusts marched beyond number,
35 And they ate up all the plants that grew
and all the fruits over their land.
36 He also brought death to the firstborn in all their land,
the first offspring of each man.
37 Then He brought His people out of slavery, weighed down with silver and gold;
and of all His tribes,
not one of them stumbled, not one was left behind.
38 Egypt was glad to see them go,
for Pharaoh’s people had been overcome with fear of them.
39 He spread out a cloud to cover His people
and sent a fire to light their way at night.
40 They asked, and He sent them coveys of quail,
satisfying their hunger with the food of heaven.
41 He split the rock and water poured out;
it flowed like a river through the desert.
42 For He remembered His holy covenant
with Abraham, His servant.
43 That’s why He rescued His people joyously
and why His chosen ones celebrated with shouts and singing.
44 When the time was right, He gave them land from other nations
so that they might possess the works of their hands,
45 So that they would be able to keep His commands
and obey His laws.
Praise the Eternal!
Psalm 106
1 Praise the Eternal!
Thank Him because He is good
and His loyal love will never end.
2 Who could find words to tell of the Eternal’s mighty deeds
or give Him all the praise He deserves?
3 Blessed are those who work for justice,
who always do what they know to be right!
4 Remember me, O Eternal One, when You show kindness to Your people;
don’t forget me when You are saving them.
5 That way I can know how good it is to be Your chosen people;
that way I can celebrate the joy of Your nation;
that way I can join those who belong to You in unending praise.
Psalm 106 was composed during the exile offering a historical review of the ways God’s people rebelled against Him. It is a fitting closure to Book Four of Psalms. After this liturgy of failure on the part of the people, the psalmist cries out in thanksgiving for God’s faithfulness and in the final verse proclaims praise “from everlasting to everlasting.”
6 Like our ancestors, we have sinned;
we have done wicked things.
7 When our ancestors were leaving Egypt,
they did not consider Your marvelous acts.
They forgot Your overwhelming kindness to them
and instead rebelled at the Red Sea.[c]
8 Nevertheless, God saved them for the honor of His name
so He could show His power to the world.
9 He gave the order, and the waters of the Red Sea dried up,
and He led the people across the sea floor as though it were the wilderness.
10 That’s how He liberated them from their enemies
and rescued them from the hand of their oppressors.
11 After that the sea surged and covered their foes,
and every one of them drowned in its waters.
12 When God’s people saw what He did, they believed what He said
and they sang praises to Him.
13 But it didn’t take long for them to forget what He had done.
They moved on without waiting for His instructions,
14 So our ancestors became very hungry in the wilderness
and the rabble grumbled and complained, testing God’s patience in the desert.
15 Although He granted their request,
He also sent a disease that caused them to waste away.
16 While they were camped in the desert, some began to be jealous of Moses
and Aaron, the holy priest of the Eternal.
17 The earth opened up, and a deep fissure swallowed Dathan
and buried Abiram’s group.
18 A blaze ignited where they were gathered;
the fire consumed the wicked mob.
19 The people made a golden calf in Horeb
and bowed to worship an image they had made.
20 They traded the glory of God
for the likeness of an ox that eats grass.
21 They forgot about God, their True Savior,
who had done great things for them in Egypt—
22 Miracles in the land of Ham
and amazing deeds at the Red Sea.
23 Therefore, He declared in His anger that He would wipe them away.
If Moses, His chosen one,
Had not pleaded for the people,
His anger would have destroyed them.
24 At the edge of the beautiful land God had promised them,
they didn’t trust His words, so they refused to enter.
25 They complained when they were gathered in their tents;
they ignored the voice of the Eternal.
26 Because of their attitude, He swore,
“I’ll leave you where you fall in the desert.
27 I’ll scatter your children—whoever is left—
throughout the nations all over the earth.”
28 Then they aligned themselves with the god of Peor,
and they ate sacrifices that had been made to lifeless gods.
29 Through their actions, they stirred up His anger,
and a plague broke out in their midst.
30 Then Phinehas took a stand and intervened,
so the plague was stopped.
31 And God saw what he did and considered him righteous,
a man to be honored by all generations forever.
32 Again they stirred up His anger at the waters of Meribah,
and serious trouble came to Moses because of them;
33 Because they stood against the Spirit,
Moses spoke rashly with them.
34 Later, after they entered the promised land, they did not eradicate the peoples,
as the Eternal had ordered them to do,
35 But they mixed and married with the outsider nations,
adopted their practices,
36 And worshiped their idols,
which entrapped them.
37 They even offered their sons
and daughters as sacrifices to the demons.
38 The promised land was corrupted by the innocent blood
they offered to the idols of Canaan,
The blood of their very own sons and daughters.
39 They became impure because of their unfaithful works;
by their actions, they prostituted themselves to other gods.
40 Therefore the Eternal’s anger was ignited against His people;
He came to despise the people of His inheritance.
41 So He handed them over to the control of foreign nations,
to be ruled by people who hated them.
42 Their enemies exploited them, victimized them,
and restrained them by abusive power.
43 He delivered them over and over again;
however, they were slow to learn and deliberately rebelled.
Their sins humbled them and nearly destroyed them.
44 Nevertheless, He saw their great struggle, took pity on them,
and heard their prayers;
45 He did not forget His covenant promises to them
but reversed their fortune and released them from their punishment
because of His loyal love.
46 He changed the hearts of all who held them captive
so that they would show compassion on them.
47 Save us, O Eternal One our God,
and gather us who are scattered among all the nations,
That we may give thanks to Your holy name
and celebrate Your amazing greatness with praise.
48 Blessed be the Eternal, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
And let everyone say, “Amen!”
Praise the Eternal!
3 My brothers and sisters, I cannot address you as people who walk by the Spirit; I have to speak to you as people who tend to think in merely human terms, as spiritual infants in the Anointed One. 2 I nursed you with milk, as a mother would feed her baby, because you were not, and still are not, developed enough to digest complex spiritual food. 3 And here’s why: you are still living in the flesh, not in the Spirit. How do I know? Are you fighting with one another? Are you comparing yourselves to others and becoming consumed with jealousy? Then it sounds like you are living in the flesh, no different from the rest who live by the standards of this rebellious and broken world. 4 If one of you is saying, “I am with Paul,” and the other says, “I am with Apollos,” aren’t you like everybody else? 5 So who is Apollos really? Or Paul for that matter? We are only servants, agents who led you to faith, and the Lord commissioned each of us to do a particular job.
Paul’s test for spiritually immaturity: Do you argue? Do you compare yourself to others? Are you jealous? Answer “yes” to any of these, then you are spiritually immature.
6 My job was to plant the seed, and Apollos was called to water it. Any growth comes from God, 7 so the ones who water and plant have nothing to brag about. God, who causes the growth, is the only One who matters. 8 The one who plants is no greater than the one who waters; both will be rewarded based on their work. 9 We are gardeners and field workers laboring with God. You are the vineyard, the garden, the house where God dwells. 10 Like a skilled architect and master builder, I laid a foundation based upon God’s grace given to me. Now others will come along to build on the foundation. Each serves in a different way and is to build upon it with great care. 11 There is, in fact, only one foundation, and no one can lay any foundation other than Jesus the Anointed. 12 As others build on the foundation (whether with gold, silver, gemstones, wood, hay, or straw), 13 the quality of each person’s work will be revealed in time as it is tested by fire. 14 If a man’s work stands the test of fire, he will be rewarded. 15 If a man’s work is consumed by the fire, his reward will be lost but he will be spared, rescued from the fire. 16 Don’t you understand that together you form a temple to the living God and His Spirit lives among you? 17 If someone comes along to corrupt, vandalize, and destroy the temple of God, you can be sure that God will see to it that he meets destruction because the temple of God is sacred. You, together, are His temple.
18 Don’t let anyone deceive himself. If any one of you thinks he is wise in matters pertaining to this world, he is going to be really disappointed. In fact, one must be deemed a fool by worldly standards in order to become truly wise 19 because the wisdom of this rebellious and broken world looks like foolishness when put next to God. So it stands in Scripture, “He catches the wise in their deceitful plotting.”[a] 20 And the Scriptures add, “The Lord knows the highest thoughts of the wise, and they are worthless.”[b] 21 So there is no reason for anyone to boast in human leaders. You already have it all. 22 So whether it is Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life or death, the present or the future—it all belongs to you. 23 You belong to the Anointed One, and the Anointed One belongs to God.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.