Book of Common Prayer
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.[a]
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!
14 Return, Israel, to the Eternal, your True God.
You’ve stumbled because of your wickedness.
2 Think about what to say, and come back to the Eternal One.
Say to Him, “Forgive all our sins, and take us back again.
Bring us into Your good grace so we can offer You praise and sacrifice,
the fruit of our lips.
3 We admit that Assyria can’t save us, nor can riding horses and chariots into battle.
We’ll never again say to idols made with our own hands, ‘You’re our gods!’
We know You’re merciful because You take care of orphans.”
4 Eternal One: I’ll heal their apostate hearts so they won’t turn away from Me again;
I’ll love them freely because I won’t be angry with them anymore.
5 I’ll be like dew that waters Israel. She’ll blossom like the lily.
She’ll put down roots like the stable cedars of Lebanon;
6 She’ll send out shoots until her beauty is like the olive tree
and her fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon.
7 The people will return from exile and sit in My shade once again;
they’ll flourish like grain; they’ll send out shoots like the vine.
And their fame will be like the wine of Lebanon.
8 Ephraim, what do I have in common with deaf and blind idols?
I’m the One who responds to your pleas and cares for you.
I’m like a flourishing juniper tree; I provide life year-round.
9 The wise will understand these things;
the perceptive will know them.
For everything the Eternal One does is right,
and the righteous follow His ways.
But those who turn against Him will stumble along His path.
30 He still needed to conduct an investigation to uncover the Jews’ accusations against Paul. So the next day, he removed the ties on Paul and called a meeting with the chief priests and council of elders. He brought Paul in and had him stand before the group.
23 Paul stared at the council and spoke.
Paul: Brothers, I have always lived my life to this very day with a clear conscience before God.
2 Ananias the high priest signaled those standing near Paul to hit him on the mouth.
Paul: 3 You hypocrite! God will slap you! How dare you sit in judgment and claim to represent the law, while you violate the law by ordering me to be struck for no reason?
Bystanders: 4 The nerve of you insulting the high priest of God!
Paul: 5 I’m sorry, my brothers. I didn’t realize this was the high priest. The law warns us to not curse the ruler of the people.[a]
Paul is brilliant. Accused by a group of religious intellectuals, he gets them fighting with one another. Paul understands the axiom, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” so he picks a fight with the Sadducees knowing the rest of the room will defend him. The thing society opposes often defines it, so manipulation is easy. (Consider some of the conservative political pundits who have never espoused any inclination toward Christianity. They gain millions of Christian followers by opposing the political enemies of conservative Christians.) Paul embraces a similar strategy here—if he can get these guys to fight, they will forget why they are actually convening. In many ways, the culture war is equally distracting to the early church. In the middle of the Jews vs. Gentiles battle, the church is realizing believers are not here to fight about morality and culture, but to bring the kingdom of God to earth. His kingdom will not come by debate, but by the working of the Holy Spirit within the church.
6 Paul noticed that some members of the council were Sadducees and some were Pharisees, so he quickly spoke to the council.
Paul: Brothers, I am a Pharisee, born to a Pharisee. I am on trial because I have hope that the dead are raised!
7 That got the two parties arguing with one another 8 because the Sadducees say there is no such thing as resurrection, heavenly messengers, or spirits, and the Pharisees believe in all three.
9 Soon these leaders were shouting, and some of the scholars from the party of the Pharisees rose to their feet.
Pharisees: There is nothing wrong with this man. Maybe he really has encountered a spirit or a heavenly messenger.
10 The two parties were about to start throwing punches, and the commandant was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces, so he sent in his soldiers to intervene. They took Paul back into custody and returned him to their barracks. 11 That night the Lord came near and spoke to him.
The Lord: Keep up your courage, Paul! You have successfully told your story about Me in Jerusalem, and soon you will do the same in Rome.
39 Jesus told them this parable:
Jesus: What happens if a blind man leads a blind man? Won’t both of them fall into a pit? 40 You can’t turn out better than your teacher; when you’re fully taught, you will resemble your teacher.
41 Speaking of blindness: Why do you focus on the speck in your brother’s eye? Why don’t you see the log in your own? 42 How can you say to your brother, “Oh, brother, let me help you take that little speck out of your eye,” when you don’t even see the big log in your own eye? What a hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye. Then you’ll be able to see clearly enough to help your brother with the speck in his eye.
43 Count on this: no good tree bears bad fruit, and no bad tree bears good fruit. 44 You can know a tree by the fruit it bears. You don’t find figs on a thorn bush, and you can’t pick grapes from a briar bush. 45 It’s the same with people. A person full of goodness in his heart produces good things; a person with an evil reservoir in his heart pours out evil things. The heart overflows in the words a person speaks; your words reveal what’s within your heart.
46 What good is it to mouth the words, “Lord! Lord!” if you don’t live by My teachings? 47 What matters is that you come to Me, hear My words, and actually live by them. 48 If you do that, you’ll be like the man who wanted to build a sturdy house. He dug down deep and anchored his foundation to solid rock. During a violent storm, the floodwaters slammed against the house, but they couldn’t shake it because of solid craftsmanship. [It was built upon rock.][a]
49 On the other hand, if you hear My teachings but don’t put them into practice, you’ll be like the careless builder who didn’t bother to build a foundation under his house. The floodwaters barely touched that pathetic house, and it crashed in ruins in the mud.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.