Psalm 50:7-23

Common English Bible

⁷ “Listen, my people, I will now speak;
    Israel, I will now testify against you.
    I am God—your God!
⁸ I’m not punishing you for your sacrifices
    or for your entirely burned offerings,
    which are always before me.
⁹ I won’t accept bulls from your house
    or goats from your corrals
¹⁰     because every forest animal already belongs to me,
    as do the cattle on a thousand hills.
¹¹ I know every mountain bird;
    even the insects in the fields are mine.
¹² Even if I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you
    because the whole world and everything in it already belong to me.
¹³ Do I eat bulls’ meat?
    Do I drink goats’ blood?
¹⁴ Offer God a sacrifice of thanksgiving!
    Fulfill the promises you made to the Most High!
¹⁵ Cry out to me whenever you are in trouble;
    I will deliver you, then you will honor me.”

¹⁶ But to the wicked God says,
“Why do you talk about my laws?
    Why do you even mention my covenant?
¹⁷ You hate discipline, and
    you toss my words behind your back.
¹⁸ You make friends with thieves whenever you see one;
    you spend your time with adulterers.
¹⁹ You set your mouth free to do evil,
    then harness your tongue to tell lies.
²⁰ You sit around, talking about your own siblings;
    you find fault with the children of your very own mother.
²¹ You’ve done these things and I’ve kept quiet.
    You thought I was just like you!
        But now I’m punishing you;
        I’m laying it all out, right in front of your face.
²² So consider this carefully, all you who forget God,
    or I’ll rip you to pieces with no one to deliver you:
²³ The one who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving is the one who honors me.
    And it is to the one who charts the correct path that I will show divine salvation.”