Psalm 66

For the worship leader. A song.

21 Manasseh was 12 years old when he inherited the throne. His reign in Jerusalem lasted 55 years. His mother was Hephzibah. ² He committed evil in the Eternal’s eyes, like the abhorrent practices of those nations driven out by the Eternal before the Israelites settled in Canaan. ³ Manasseh reconstructed the high places his father, Hezekiah, had demolished. He constructed altars for Baal and crafted a sacred pole, just as Ahab the former king of Israel had done. He offered his praise to all the gods of the skies and was in service to them.

⁴ He constructed altars in the Eternal’s temple to foreign, pagan gods. This was the temple the Eternal had spoken of when He said, “My name will dwell in Jerusalem.” ⁵ He contaminated the temple by constructing altars for all the gods of the skies in both the courts in the Eternal’s temple.

⁶ He forced his son to go through the fire as a burnt offering, and he was trained in the dark arts of witchcraft and fortune-telling. He practiced them both. He consulted necromancers and clairvoyants. He committed many wicked acts in the Eternal’s eyes, which caused Him to boil in anger.

⁷ He placed a carved image of the goddess Asherah in the Eternal’s temple. It was the very temple that the Eternal had spoken of to David and to Solomon, saying, “My name will dwell in this temple in Jerusalem forever. I have handpicked it from all of Israel’s tribes. ⁸ If the Israelites will honor the commands and laws I have given them through Moses, then I will no longer force them to be apart from the land I promised to their ancestors. They will live peacefully within the promised land.”

⁹ But the Israelites kept their ears and hearts closed to the message of the Lord; and Manasseh caused them to live even more sinful lives than the wicked nations, whom the Eternal annihilated before them, had committed. ¹⁰ The Eternal One delivered His message through His servants, the prophets.

¹⁴ This is what we know: the law comes from the spiritual realm. My problem is that I am of the fallen human realm, owned by sin, which tries to keep me in its service.

¹⁵ Listen, I can’t explain my actions. Here’s why: I am not able to do the things I want; and at the same time, I do the things I despise. ¹⁶ If I am doing the things I have already decided not to do, I am agreeing with the law regarding what is good. ¹⁷ But now I am no longer the one acting—I’ve lost control—sin has taken up residence in me and is wreaking havoc. ¹⁸ I know that in me, that is, in my fallen human nature, there is nothing good. I can will myself to do something good, but that does not help me carry it out. ¹⁹ I can determine that I am going to do good, but I don’t do it; instead, I end up living out the evil that I decided not to do. ²⁰ If I end up doing the exact thing I pledged not to do, I am no longer doing it because sin has taken up residence in me.

²¹ Here’s an important principle I’ve discovered: regardless of my desire to do the right thing, it is clear that evil is never far away. ²² For deep down I am in happy agreement with God’s law; ²³ but the rest of me does not concur. I see a very different principle at work in my bodily members, and it is at war with my mind; I have become a prisoner in this war to the rule of sin in my body. ²⁴ I am absolutely miserable! Is there anyone who can free me from this body where sin and death reign so supremely? ²⁵ I am thankful to God for the freedom that comes through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! So on the one hand, I devotedly serve God’s law with my mind; but on the other hand, with my flesh, I serve the principle of sin.