Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 92
A song for the Sabbath Day.
Psalm 92 gives thanks to God for His salvation. The superscription provides the only reference to the Sabbath in the Book of Psalms.
1 How good it is to give thanks to the Eternal
and to praise Your name with song, O Most High;
2 To speak of Your unfailing love in the morning
and rehearse Your faithfulness as night begins to fall.
3 How good it is to praise to the sound of strings—lute and harp—
the stirring melodies of the lyre.
4 Because You, O Eternal One, thrill me with the things You have done,
I will sing with joy in light of Your deeds.
12 Those who are devoted to God will flourish like budding date-palm trees;
they will grow strong and tall like cedars in Lebanon.
13 Those planted in the house of the Eternal
will thrive in the courts of our God.
14 They will bear fruit into old age;
even in winter, they will be green and full of sap
15 To display that the Eternal is righteous.
He is my rock, and there is no shadow of evil in Him.
13 A wise child is attentive to his parents’ instruction,
but the mocker is deaf to correction.
2 A person eats well when he speaks wisely,
but the treacherous crave violence.
3 Those who guard their speech insure they will take another breath,
but those who talk without thinking guarantee their demise.
4 Slackers crave but have their fill of nothing,
but the hardworking desire and are completely satisfied.
5 The right-living will not tolerate any lie,
but wrongdoers come to shame and embarrassment.
6 Doing right keeps the innocent on the path of life,
but doing wrong is the downfall of the wicked.
7 One pretends he is wealthy but has nothing,
while another seems to be poor but has great wealth.
8 The rich are targeted and must ransom their lives,
but no one bothers to threaten the poor.
9 The light of the right-living brings joy as it burns brightly;
the lamp of a wrongdoer will be snuffed out.
10 Arrogance only produces arguments,
but wisdom accompanies those well advised.
11 Money earned hastily is easily lost,
but hard-earned money continues to grow.
12 Hope postponed grieves the heart;
but when a dream comes true, life is full and sweet.
12 Consider this: sin entered our world through one man, Adam; and through sin, death followed in hot pursuit. Death spread rapidly to infect all people on the earth as they engaged in sin.
God’s gift of grace and salvation is amazing. Paul struggles to find the words to describe it. He looks everywhere around him to find a metaphor, an image, a word to put into language one aspect of this awesome gift. One of those is “reconciliation.” There is hardly anything more beautiful than to see two people who have been enemies or estranged or separated coming back together. When Paul reflects on what God has done through Jesus, he thinks about reconciliation. Before we receive God’s blessing through His Son, we are enemies of God, sinners of the worst sort. But God makes the first move to restore us to a right relationship with Him.
13 Before God gave the law, sin existed, but there was no way to account for it. Outside the law, how could anyone be charged and found guilty of sin? 14 Still, death plagued all humanity from Adam to Moses, even those whose sin was of a different sort than Adam’s. You see, in God’s plan, Adam was a prototype of the One who comes to usher in a new day. 15 But the free gift of grace bears no resemblance to Adam’s crime that brings a death sentence to all of humanity; in fact, it is quite the opposite. For if the one man’s sin brings death to so many, how much more does the gift of God’s radical grace extend to humanity since Jesus the Anointed offered His generous gift. 16 His free gift is nothing like the scourge of the first man’s sin. The judgment that fell because of one false step brought condemnation, but the free gift following countless offenses results in a favorable verdict—not guilty. 17 If one man’s sin brought a reign of death—that’s Adam’s legacy—how much more will those who receive grace in abundance and the free gift of redeeming justice reign in life by means of one other man—Jesus the Anointed.
18 So here is the result: as one man’s sin brought about condemnation and punishment for all people, so one man’s act of faithfulness makes all of us right with God and brings us to new life. 19 Just as through one man’s defiant disobedience every one of us were made sinners, so through the willing obedience of the one man many of us will be made right.
20 When the law came into the picture, sin grew and grew; but wherever sin grew and spread, God’s grace was there in fuller, greater measure. No matter how much sin crept in, there was always more grace. 21 In the same way that sin reigned in the sphere of death, now grace reigns through God’s restorative justice, eclipsing death and leading to eternal life through the Anointed One, Jesus our Lord, the Liberating King.
We arrive here, children of a common ancestor, Adam. As such, we have inherited his traits, physically and spiritually. Although our sin may be of a different sort than his, we sin no less than Adam. The proof of that is death. Adam opens the way for sin and death to pursue us and run rampant across the earth. But from the beginning, God has a plan to reverse the curse. At just the right moment in human history, Jesus arrives, a son of Adam and the Son of God. Through His faithful obedience to His Father, He challenges the twin powers of sin and death and defeats them. Sin no longer reigns unchecked. Death no longer has the last word.
6 How should we respond to all of this? Is it good to persist in a life of sin so that grace may multiply even more? 2 Absolutely not! How can we die to a life where sin ruled over us and then invite sin back into our lives?
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.