Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 93
1 The Eternal reigns, clothed in majesty;
He is dressed in power;
He has surrounded Himself with strength.
He has established the world, and it will never be toppled.
2 Your throne was established from the beginning of the world, O God,
and You are everlasting.
3 The waters have risen, O Eternal One;
the sound of pounding waves is deafening.
The waters have roared with power.
4 More powerful than the thunder of mighty rivers,
more powerful than the mighty waves in the ocean
is the Eternal on high!
5 Your teachings are true;
Your decrees sure.
Sacredness adorns Your house, O Eternal One, forevermore.
Psalm 96
1 Sing a new song to the Eternal;
sing in one voice to the Eternal, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Eternal of all the good things He’s done.
Bless His name;
broadcast the good news of His salvation each and every day.
3 Enlighten the nations to His splendor;
describe His wondrous acts to all people.
4 For the Eternal is great indeed and praiseworthy;
feared and reverenced above all gods, the True God shall be.
5 For all human-made, lifeless gods are worthless idols,
but the Eternal plotted the vast heavens, shaped every last detail.
6 Honor and majesty precede Him;
strength and beauty infuse His holy sanctuary.
One of the great themes of Scripture and Psalms is the kingship of God. While lesser kings come and go, God is the One who ultimately rules and reigns over His people, and by extension over the rest of creation. Psalm 96 and others in the collection are often referred to as “enthronement” psalms because they declare boldly and unequivocally that the Eternal is King. There is evidence to suggest that an annual festival at the beginning of the year provided an opportunity to reaffirm the people’s loyalty to the one True God. Psalm 96 calls for new songs to be composed and sung to God and about God as a witness. The enthronement psalms call the world and all its inhabitants to come and recognize His beauty and majesty.
7 Give all credit to the Eternal, families of the world!
Credit Him with glory, honor, and strength!
8 Credit Him with the glory worthy of His magnificent name;
gather your sacrifice, and present it at His temple.
9 Bow down to the Eternal, adorned in holiness;
lay awestruck before Him, trembling, all people of the earth.
10 Shout out to the nations, “The Eternal reigns!
Yes, indeed, the world is anchored and will not shake loose.
He governs all people with a fair hand.”
11 And so, let the heavens resound in gladness!
Let joy be the earth’s rhythm as the sea and all its creatures roar.
12 Let the fields grow in triumph, a grand jubilee for all that live there.
Let all the trees of the forest dig in and reach high with songs of joy before the Eternal,
13 For the Eternal is on His way:
yes, He is coming to judge the earth.
He will set the world right by His standards,
and by His faithfulness, He will examine the people.
Psalm 34
A song of David as he pretended to be insane to escape from Abimelech.
While there is nothing specific to tie this Davidic psalm to the events in 1 Samuel 21:10–15, the superscription recalls a time when David pretended to be insane to protect himself from the Philistines.
1 I will praise the Eternal in every moment through every situation.
Whenever I speak, my words will always praise Him.
2 Everything within me wants to pay tribute to Him.
Whenever the poor and humble hear of His greatness, they will celebrate too!
3 Come and lift up the Eternal with me;
let’s praise His name together!
4 When I needed the Lord, I looked for Him;
I called out to Him, and He heard me and responded.
He came and rescued me from everything that made me so afraid.
5 Look to Him and shine,
so shame will never contort your faces.
6 This poor soul cried, and the Eternal heard me.
He rescued me from my troubles.
7 The messenger of the Eternal God surrounds
everyone who walks with Him and is always there to protect and rescue us.
8 Taste of His goodness; see how wonderful the Eternal truly is.
Anyone who puts trust in Him will be blessed and comforted.
9 Revere the Eternal, you His saints,
for those who worship Him will possess everything important in life.
10 Young lions may grow tired and hungry,
but those intent on knowing the Eternal God will have everything they need.
11 Gather around, children, listen to what I’m saying;
I will teach you how to revere the Eternal.
12 If you love life
and want to live a good, long time,
13 Take care with the things you say.
Don’t lie or spread gossip or talk about improper things.
14 Walk away from the evil things of the world,
and always seek peace and pursue it.
15 For the Eternal watches over the righteous,
and His ears are attuned to their prayers. He is always listening.
16 But He will punish evildoers,
and nothing they do will last. They will soon be forgotten.
17 When the upright need help and cry to the Eternal, He hears their cries
and rescues them from all of their troubles.
18 When someone is hurting or brokenhearted, the Eternal moves in close
and revives him in his pain.
19 Hard times may well be the plight of the righteous—
they may often seem overwhelmed—
but the Eternal rescues the righteous from what oppresses them.
20 He will protect all of their bones;
not even one bone will be broken.
21 Evil moves in and ultimately murders the wicked;
the enemies of the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Eternal will liberate His servants;
those who seek refuge in Him will never be condemned.
9 This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, decrees:
Eternal One: The enemy will pass over the remnant of Israel again and glean what is left,
like the worker who checks the vine again for any missed grapes.
10 To whom should I speak and give this warning?
Who will listen to what I say?
Their ears are closed; they cannot hear. They’re deaf to anything about God.
The Eternal’s word is offensive to them. They take no delight in it.
11 But I am welling up with His anger.
I’m too tired to try to hold it in any longer.
Eternal One: Pour it out on children playing in the streets,
on young men meeting together.
Husbands and wives, old and even the very old—
let each of them know they will be taken.
12 Their homes will be seized and lived in by others;
so, too, will their fields and wives be taken from them and given to others when I reach out against the people of this land.
13 Greed has corrupted this culture, from the least to the greatest:
all are tainted with this lust for what they don’t deserve.
The prophets and priests are no better.
Their lives reek with deceit.
14 To heal the brokenness of My people,
they offer superficial words.
They say, “Peace, peace,” as if all is well.
But there is no peace.
15 Do they feel any shame for their disgraceful deeds?
Absolutely not. My very own have forgotten how to blush.
And so it is that they will fall among the fallen and be defeated;
when the time comes, they will stumble beneath the weight of My punishment;
They will know soon enough what they have done.
This is what the Eternal decrees:
In the same way that some seek to reduce Christianity to a philosophy or a set of ideas, others seek to reduce it to a set of rules for living. If true faith is only about eating certain foods, abstaining from others, and avoiding certain practices, then willpower must be more important than the Spirit of God. But following stringent rules is not that easy. Actually, living by willpower is hard—some might say impossible. Paul is preaching about an alternative to a life governed by rules and restrictions, and that’s a life of faith that embraces grace. What Paul is about to describe is a life of freedom that surpasses a life of rule keeping.
12 I can hear some of you saying, “For me, all things are permitted.” But face the facts: all things are not beneficial. So you say, “For me, all things are permitted.” Here’s my response: I will not allow anything to control me. 13 Another chimes in: “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.” I suppose so, but a day will come when God will dispense with both food and the stomach. The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord; the Lord is over all, and He cares about your body. 14 God has raised the Lord Jesus from death, but He won’t stop there. His dynamic power will raise us up from the grips of death as well. 15 Don’t you realize that your bodies are members of the Anointed One? So should I take the members of the Anointed One and unite them to a prostitute? This illicit union should never take place! 16 Don’t you understand that when your body is joined with a prostitute, the two of you have become one body? For as it says, “The two come together as one flesh.”[a] 17 But when you are joined with the Lord, you become one spirit with Him. 18 Run from immoral behavior. All other sins are disconnected from the body, but sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who comes from God and dwells inside of you? You do not own yourself. 20 You have been purchased at a great price, so use your body to bring glory to God!
For most of Jesus’ miracles, the disciples are observers: they watch Him healing the sick, raising dead bodies, and casting demons out of strangers. This time, however, it is the disciples—and even Jesus Himself—who are in danger. Maybe that’s why they are having such a hard time trusting that His power is greater than their situation.
They have seen Him cast out demons. They know He has powers that are not of natural origin. But they have never seen—or even heard of—anything like this. It’s one thing to heal human sickness or even to order demons around. But to order the waves and the wind? To command the sea and the storm? That’s a miracle of an entirely different order.
5 They traveled across the sea to the land of Gerasa[a] in Galilee. 2-3 When Jesus came ashore there, He was immediately met by a man who was tortured by an evil spirit. This man lived in the cemeteries, and no one could control him—not even those who tried to tie him up or chain him. 4 He had often been bound in chains, but his strength was so great that he could break the chains and tear the irons loose from his feet and hands. No one and nothing could subdue him. 5 Day and night, he lurked among the tombs or ran mad in the hills, and the darkness made him scream or cut himself with sharp-edged stones. 6 When this man saw Jesus coming in the distance, he ran to Him and fell to his knees in front of Him. 7-8 Jesus started commanding the unclean spirit.
Jesus: Come out of that man, you wicked spirit!
Unclean Spirit (shouting): What’s this all about, Jesus, Son of the Most High? In the name of God, I beg You—don’t torture me!
Jesus: 9 What is your name?
Unclean Spirit: They call me “Legion,” for there are thousands of us in this body.
10 And then Legion begged Jesus again to leave them alone, not to send them out of the country.
11 Since the Gerasenes were not Jews (who considered pigs to be unclean), there happened to be a large herd of swine, some 2,000 of them, feeding on the hill nearby.
Unclean Spirit (begging): 12 Send us into those pigs if You have to, so that we may enter into them.
13 Jesus granted the request. The darkness swept up out of the man and into the herd of pigs. And then they thundered down the hill into the water; and there they drowned, all 2,000 of them.
14 The swineherds ran away, telling everybody they met what had happened. Eventually a crowd of people came to see for themselves. 15 When they reached Jesus, they found the man Legion had afflicted sitting quietly, sane and fully clothed; when they saw this, they were overwhelmed with fear and wonder.
16 Those who had witnessed everything told the others what had happened: how Jesus had healed the man, how the pigs had rushed into the sea, and how they had destroyed themselves. 17 When they had heard the whole story, the Gerasenes turned to Jesus and begged Him to go away.
18 When Jesus climbed back into the boat, the cured demoniac asked if he could come and be with Him, but Jesus said no.
Jesus: 19 Stay here; I want you to go back home to your own people and let them see what the Lord has done—how He has had mercy on you.
20 So the man went away and began telling this news in the Ten Cities[b] region; wherever he went, people were amazed by what he told them.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.