Old/New Testament
Psalm 66
To the Chief Musician. A song. A Psalm.
1 Make a joyful noise unto God, all the earth;
2 Sing forth the honor and glory of His name; make His praise glorious!
3 Say to God, How awesome and fearfully glorious are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power shall Your enemies submit themselves to You [with feigned and reluctant obedience].
4 All the earth shall bow down to You and sing [praises] to You; they shall praise Your name in song. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
5 Come and see the works of God; see how [to save His people He smites their foes; He is] terrible in His doings toward the children of men.
6 He turned the sea into dry land, they crossed through the river on foot; there did we rejoice in Him.
7 He rules by His might forever, His eyes observe and keep watch over the nations; let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
8 Bless our God, O peoples, give Him grateful thanks and make the voice of His praise be heard,
9 Who put and kept us among the living, and has not allowed our feet to slip.
10 For You, O God, have proved us; You have tried us as silver is tried, refined, and purified.
11 You brought us into the net (the prison fortress, the dungeon); You laid a heavy burden upon our loins.
12 You caused men to ride over our heads [when we were prostrate]; we went through fire and through water, but You brought us out into a broad, moist place [to abundance and refreshment and the open air].
13 I will come into Your house with burnt offerings [of entire consecration]; I will pay You my vows,
14 Which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in distress.
15 I will offer to You burnt offerings of fat lambs, with rams consumed in sweet-smelling smoke; I will offer bullocks and he-goats. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
16 Come and hear, all you who reverently and worshipfully fear God, and I will declare what He has done for me!
17 I cried aloud to Him; He was extolled and high praise was under my tongue.
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me;(A)
19 But certainly God has heard me; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God, Who has not rejected my prayer nor removed His mercy and loving-kindness from being [as it always is] with me.
Psalm 67
To the Chief Musician; on stringed instruments. A Psalm. A song.
1 God be merciful and gracious to us and bless us and cause His face to shine upon us and among us—Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!—
2 That Your way may be known upon earth, Your saving power (Your deliverances and Your salvation) among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise You [turn away from their idols] and give thanks to You, O God; let all the peoples praise and give thanks to You.
4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You will judge the peoples fairly and guide, lead, or drive the nations upon earth. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
5 Let the peoples praise You [turn away from their idols] and give thanks to You, O God; let all the peoples praise and give thanks to You!
6 The earth has yielded its harvest [in evidence of God’s approval]; God, even our own God, will bless us.
7 God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall reverently fear Him.
7 Do you not know, brethren—for I am speaking to men who are acquainted with the Law—that legal claims have power over a person only for as long as he is alive?
2 For [instance] a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is loosed and discharged from the law concerning her husband.
3 Accordingly, she will be held an adulteress if she unites herself to another man while her husband lives. But if her husband dies, the marriage law no longer is binding on her [she is free from that law]; and if she unites herself to another man, she is not an adulteress.
4 Likewise, my brethren, you have undergone death as to the Law through the [crucified] body of Christ, so that now you may belong to Another, to Him Who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
5 When we were living in the flesh (mere physical lives), the sinful passions that were awakened and aroused up by [what] the Law [makes sin] were constantly operating in our natural powers (in our bodily organs, [a]in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh), so that we bore fruit for death.
6 But now we are discharged from the Law and have terminated all intercourse with it, having died to what once restrained and held us captive. So now we serve not under [obedience to] the old code of written regulations, but [under obedience to the promptings] of the Spirit in newness [of life].
7 What then do we conclude? Is the Law identical with sin? Certainly not! Nevertheless, if it had not been for the Law, I should not have recognized sin or have known its meaning. [For instance] I would not have known about covetousness [would have had no consciousness of sin or sense of guilt] if the Law had not [repeatedly] said, You shall not covet and have an evil desire [for one thing and another].(A)
8 But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment [to express itself], got a hold on me and aroused and stimulated all kinds of forbidden desires (lust, covetousness). For without the Law sin is dead [the sense of it is inactive and a lifeless thing].
9 Once I was alive, but quite apart from and unconscious of the Law. But when the commandment came, sin lived again and I died (was sentenced by the Law to death).(B)
10 And the very legal ordinance which was designed and intended to bring life actually proved [to mean to me] death.(C)
11 For sin, seizing the opportunity and getting a hold on me [by taking its incentive] from the commandment, beguiled and entrapped and cheated me, and using it [as a weapon], killed me.
12 The Law therefore is holy, and [each] commandment is holy and just and good.
13 Did that which is good then prove fatal [bringing death] to me? Certainly not! It was sin, working death in me by using this good thing [as a weapon], in order that through the commandment sin might be shown up clearly to be sin, that the extreme malignity and immeasurable sinfulness of sin might plainly appear.
14 We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a creature of the flesh [carnal, unspiritual], having been sold into slavery under [the control of] sin.
15 For I do not understand my own actions [I am baffled, bewildered]. I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe [[b]which my moral instinct condemns].
16 Now if I do [habitually] what is contrary to my desire, [that means that] I acknowledge and agree that the Law is good (morally excellent) and that I take sides with it.
17 However, it is no longer I who do the deed, but the sin [principle] which is at home in me and has possession of me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. [I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.]
19 For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it [it is not myself that acts], but the sin [principle] which dwells within me [[c]fixed and operating in my soul].
21 So I find it to be a law (rule of action of my being) that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its insistent demands.
22 For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [with my new nature].(D)
23 But I discern in my bodily members [[d]in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action) at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my bodily organs [[e]in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh].
24 O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death?
25 O thank God! [He will!] through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
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