Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 119[a]
Psalm 119 is the longest psalm in the collection. It is a hymn in praise of and appreciation for God’s instructions to His people. You see, God not only called Israel to be His people and gave them a wonderful land, but He gave them a blueprint for living. The Hebrew word for that is torah, sometimes translated “law” or “teachings.” In torah God tells them how to structure their lives and communities so that they will live long, prosperous lives in the land He has given them. As you read through the psalm, you will notice words like law, teachings, precepts, word, decrees, and commands. Each of these words is a synonym highlighting some attribute of God’s instructions to His people.
Another memorable feature of this psalm is its form. The psalmist constructs this hymn as an elaborate acrostic poem that moves artfully through each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Essentially, all the elements of this psalm combine to emphasize the importance of God’s Word to His people, to the praise and glory of the one True God.
Aleph
1 Happy are the people who walk with integrity,
who live according to the teachings of the Eternal.
2 Happy are the people who keep His decrees,
who pursue Him wholeheartedly.
3 These are people who do nothing wrong;
they do what it takes to follow His ways.
4 You have given us Your precepts
so we would be careful about keeping them.
5 Oh, that every part of my life would remain in line
with what You require!
6 Then I would feel no shame
when I fix my eyes upon Your commands.
7 With a pure heart, I will give thanks to You
when I hear about Your just and fair rulings.
8 I will live within Your limits;
do not abandon me completely!
Beth
9 How can a young person remain pure?
Only by living according to Your word.
10 I have pursued You with my whole heart;
do not let me stray from Your commands.
11 Deep within me I have hidden Your word
so that I will never sin against You.
12 You are blessed, O Eternal One;
instruct me in what You require.
13 My lips have told how
You have delivered all Your wise rulings.
14 I have celebrated Your testimonies
as though rejoicing over an immeasurable fortune.
15 I will fix my mind on Your instructions
and my eyes on Your path.
16 I will find joy in Your ordinances;
I will remember Your word forever.
Gimel
17 Treat Your servant well, Lord,
so that I may live and remain faithful to Your word.
18 Let me see clearly so that I may take in
the amazing things coming from Your law.
19 I am a sojourner in the world;
do not keep Your commands hidden from me.
20 My soul aches from craving
Your wise rulings day and night.
21 You rebuke those who are proud,
and those who stray from Your commands are cursed.
22 Free me from the contempt and disdain of others
because I keep Your decrees.
23 Even though powerful princes conspire against me,
I fix my mind on what You require.
24 Yes, Your testimonies are my joy;
they are like the friends I seek for counsel.
Psalm 12
For the worship leader. A song of David accompanied by the lyre.[a]
1 Help me, O Eternal One, for I can’t find anyone who follows You.
The faithful have fallen out of sight.
2 Everyone tells lies through sweet-talking lips
and speaks from a hollow and deceptive heart.
3 May the Eternal silence all sweet-talking lips,
stop all boasting tongues,
4 Of those who say, “With our words we will win;
our lips are our own. Who is the master of our souls?”
5 “I will rise up,” says the Eternal,
“because the poor are being trampled, and the needy groan for My saving help.
I will lift them up to the safety they long for.”
6 The promises of the Eternal, they are true, they are pure—
like silver refined in a furnace,
purified seven times, they will be without impurity.
7 You, O Eternal, will be their protector.
You will keep them safe from those around them forever.
8 All around, those who are wicked parade—proud and arrogant—and people applaud their emptiness.
Psalm 13
For the worship leader. A song of David.
1 How long, O Eternal One? How long will You forget me? Forever?
How long will You look the other way?
2 How long must I agonize,
grieving Your absence in my heart every day?
How long will You let my enemies win?
3 Turn back; respond to me, O Eternal, my True God!
Put the spark of life in my eyes, or I’m dead.
4 My enemies will boast they have beaten me;
my foes will celebrate that I have stumbled.
5 But I trust in Your faithful love;
my heart leaps at the thought of imminent deliverance by You.
6 I will sing to the Eternal,
for He is always generous with me.
Psalm 14
For the worship leader. A song of David.
This is a wisdom psalm that grieves over the pervasiveness of sin and its sad effects. It is repeated with minor changes in Psalm 53. Paul refers to this Davidic psalm to explain how all of humanity is tainted by sin (Romans 3:1–12).
1 A wicked and foolish man truly believes there is no God.
They are vile, their sinfulness nauseating to their Creator;
their actions are soiled and repulsive; every deed is depraved;
not one of them does good.
2 The Eternal leans over from heaven to survey the sons of Adam.
No one is missed, and no one can hide.
He searches to see who understands true wisdom,
who desires to know the True God.
3 They all turn their backs, walking their own roads;
they are rancid, leaving a trail of rotten footsteps behind them;
not one of them does good,
not even one.
4 Do the wicked have no clue about what really matters?
They devour my brothers and sisters the way a man eats his dinner.
They ignore the Eternal and don’t call on Him, rejecting His reality and truth.
5 They shall secretly tremble behind closed doors, hearts beating hard within their chests,
knowing that God always avenges the upright.
6 You laugh at the counsel of the poor, the needy, the troubled who put their trust in God.
You try to take away their only hope,
but the Eternal is a strong shelter in the heaviest storm.
7 May a new day, a day of deliverance come for Israel, starting with Zion.
When the Eternal breaks the chains of His oppressed people,
the family of Jacob will rejoice, and Israel will be delighted.
The first of Job’s three wise friends, Eliphaz, is a man guided by strong convictions and a belief in the accumulated knowledge of his ancestors. Because he thinks Job is suffering due to his own unintended sins, Eliphaz dwells on God’s responses to the wicked and the righteous, believing he will encourage Job to accept God’s correction of his sins. Although his intentions are good, Eliphaz does not realize that Job will have a different perspective on his words. Eliphaz’s intended encouragement instead upsets Job more. These powerful convictions are expressed in the wrong place and time.
6 Job answered Eliphaz.
7 Job: Don’t we humans struggle long and hard in our time on earth?
Don’t we live our lives as common laborers?
2 As slaves longing for shade,
as workers pining for wages,
3 So I am destined to receive only months of meaninglessness,
and nights of nothing but misery.
4 When I lie down at the end of day, I wonder,
“How soon till morning so I can arise?”
But the night stretches on,
and I toss and turn until sunrise.
5 My putrid skin is covered with maggots and a dirty crust.
It hardens and cracks and oozes again.
6 My days whisk by swifter than the shuttle in a weaver’s loom—
back and forth, and back and forth—
and then they come to their hopeless end.
7 My life, remember, is just a breath;
in death no more good will reach my eye.
8 Whoever sees me now, will not for long;
you’ll look for me, but I’ll be gone.
9 As clouds thin and finally vanish,
so it is when people enter the land of the dead.
Never will they come back up.
10 Never will they return to their homes
or will the place they lived recognize them anymore.
11 Like Eliphaz, I will not keep silent.
In the agony of my spirit, I will speak;
In the bitterness of my soul, I will complain.
12 Am I the raging sea, or the monster of the deep,
so threatening you must appoint a guard over me?
13 When I think my couch will comfort me
or my bed will soften my complaint,
14 You, Lord, intimidate me with dreams
and terrorize me with visions.
15 I’d rather be suffocated, even dead,
than live in these aching bones of mine.
Job compares his treatment to God’s defeat of two mythic enemies of creation: Yam and Tannin. Ancient Near Eastern legends say that before God created the world, the “formless void” that existed was called “the deep.” When God separated the heavens from the earth, He divided the formless void with the horizon, leaving the waters of the earth below (the oceans) and the waters of the heavens above (the blue skies and clouds). Yam the sea god and Tannin the sea monster tried to interfere in this separation. God of course defeated them, imprisoning them in the sea with sandbars. Job’s reference to this myth shows he believes God is treating him unfairly, punishing him as brutally as He did these subhuman, rebellious creatures. Job, on the other hand, has not been rebellious to God.
16 Job: I hate my life. I have no desire to keep on living.
Leave me alone, God, for I have only a short time left.
17 What are these human beings, that You make so much of them—
that You shower them with attention?
18 You examine them morning by morning;
You test them moment by moment.
19 How long will You stare at me?
I can’t even clear my throat of spit without an audience.
20 I have sinned. What have I done to You,
You who watch after humanity?
Why have You targeted me, a man whose life is just a breath?
Am I really such a heavy load for You?
21 So I’ve sinned inadvertently: can’t You pardon me?
Are my crimes such You can’t forgive my sins?
After all, I will lie in the dust, and it won’t be long
until You will look for me, but I’ll be gone.
While Peter is in Joppa, another story is developing a day’s journey to the north along the Mediterranean coast.
10 Cornelius, a Roman Centurion and a member of a unit called the Italian Cohort, lived in Caesarea. 2 Cornelius was an outsider, but he was a devout man—a God-fearing fellow with a God-fearing family. He consistently and generously gave to the poor, and he practiced constant prayer to God. 3 About three o’clock one afternoon, he had a vision of a messenger of God.
Messenger of God: Cornelius!
Cornelius (terrified): 4 What is it, sir?
Messenger of God: God has heard your prayers, and He has seen your kindness to the poor. God has taken notice of you. 5-6 Send men south to Joppa, to the house of a tanner named Simon. Ask to speak to a guest of his named Simon, but also called Peter. You’ll find this house near the waterfront.
7 After the messenger departed, Cornelius immediately called two of his slaves and a soldier under his command—an especially devout soldier. 8 He told them the whole story and sent them to Joppa.
9 Just as these men were nearing Joppa about noon the next day, Peter went up on the flat rooftop of Simon the tanner’s house. He planned to pray, 10 but he soon grew hungry. While his lunch was being prepared, Peter had a vision of his own—a vision that linked his present hunger with what was about to happen: 11 A rift opened in the sky, and a wide container—something like a huge sheet suspended by its four corners—descended through the torn opening toward the ground. 12 This container teemed with four-footed animals, creatures that crawl, and birds—pigs, bats, lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, and vultures.
A Voice: 13 Get up, Peter! Kill! Eat!
Peter: 14 No way, Lord! These animals are forbidden in the dietary laws of the Hebrew Scriptures! I’ve never eaten nonkosher foods like these before—not once in my life!
A Voice: 15 If God calls something permissible and clean, you must not call it forbidden and dirty!
16 Peter saw this vision three times; but the third time, the container of animals flew up through the rift in the sky, the rift healed,
7 After these events, it was time for Jesus to move on. He began a long walk through the Galilean countryside. He was purposefully avoiding Judea because of the violent threats made against Him by the Jews there who wanted to kill Him. 2 It was fall, the time of year when the Jews celebrated the Festival of Booths.
On this holiday, everyone camps in temporary quarters, called booths, to remember that God was with their ancestors when they wandered for 40 years without a home.
Brothers of Jesus (to Jesus): 3 Let’s get out of here and go south to Judea so You can show Your disciples there what You are capable of doing. 4 No one who seeks the public eye is content to work in secret. If You want to perform these signs, then step forward on the world’s stage; don’t hide up here in the hills, Jesus.
5 Jesus’ own brothers were speaking contemptuously; they did not yet believe in Him, just as the people in His hometown did not see Him as anything more than Joseph’s son.
Jesus: 6 My time has not yet arrived; but for you My brothers, by all means, it is always the right time. 7 You have nothing to worry about because the world doesn’t hate you, but it despises Me because I am always exposing the dark evil in its works. 8 Go on to the feast without Me; I am not going right now because My time is not yet at hand.
9 This conversation came to an abrupt end, and Jesus stayed in Galilee 10 until His brothers were gone. Then He, too, went up to Jerusalem. But He traveled in secret to avoid drawing any public attention. 11 Some Jewish leaders were searching for Him at the feast and asking the crowds where they could find Him. 12 The crowds would talk in groups: some favored Jesus and thought He was a good man; others disliked Him and thought He was leading people astray. 13 All of these conversations took place in whispers. No one was willing to speak openly about Jesus for fear of the religious leaders.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.