Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 104
1 Call Him good, my soul, and praise the Eternal.
I am here to declare my affection for You, Eternal One, my God.
You are indeed great—
You who are wrapped in glory and dressed in greatness.
2 For covering, You choose light—Your clothes, sunset and moonrise.
For a tent, You stretch out the heavens; for Your roof, You pitch the sky.
3 Your upper chamber is built on beams that lie in the waters overhead,
and the clouds, Your chariot;
You are held aloft by the wind.
4 You make Your messengers like the winds;
the breeze whispers Your words,
Your servants are like the fire and flame.
5 You made the earth,
and You made its frame stable forever.
Never will it be shaken.
6 You wrapped it in a gown of waters—
ancient mountains under layers of sky.
7 But when You reprimanded those waters, they fled;
the thunder of Your voice sent them running away.
8-9 They hammered out new depths, heaved up new heights,
and swallowed up whatever You commanded.
At first, they covered the earth,
but now You have bound them,
and they know their appointed place.
10 You send fresh streams that spring up in the valleys,
in the cracks between hills.
11 Every animal of the open field makes its journey there for drink:
wild donkeys lap at the brooks’ edges.
12 Birds build their nests by the streams,
singing among the branches.
13 And the clouds, too, drink up their share,
raining it back down on the mountains from the upper reaches of Your home,
Sustaining the whole earth with what comes from You.
And the earth is satisfied.
14-15 Thus You grow grain for bread, grapes for wine, grass for cattle—
all of this for us.
And so we have bread to make our bodies strong,
wine to make our hearts happy,
oil to make our faces shine.
Every good thing we need, Your earth provides;
our faces grow flush with Your life in them.
16 The forests are Yours, Eternal One—stout hardwoods watered deeply, swollen with sap—
like the great cedars of Lebanon You planted,
17 Where many birds nest.
There are fir trees for storks,
18 High hills for wild goats,
stony cliffs for rock badgers.
For each place, a resident,
and for each resident, a home.
19 The moon strides through her phases, marking seasons as she goes.
The sun hides at his appointed time,
20 And with the darkness You bring, so comes night—
when the prowling animals of the forest move about.
21 It is then that lions seek the food You, the True God, give them,
roaring after their prey.
22 At sunrise, they disappear
and sleep away the day in their dens.
23 Meanwhile, the people take to the fields and to the shops and to the roads,
to all the places that people work, until evening when they rest.
24 There is so much here, O Eternal One, so much You have made.
By the wise way in which You create, riches and creatures fill the earth.
25 Of course, the sea is vast and stretches like the heavens beyond view,
and numberless creatures inhabit her.
From the tiny to the great, they swarm beneath her waves.
26 Our ships skim her surface
while the monsters of the sea play beneath.
27 And all of these look to You
to give them food when the time is right.
28 When You feed, they gather what You supply.
When You open Your hand, they are filled with good food.
29 When You withdraw Your presence, they are dismayed.
When You revoke their breath, the life goes out of them,
and they become, again, the dust of the earth from which You formed them at the start.
30 When You send out Your breath, life is created,
and the face of the earth is made beautiful and is renewed.
31 May the glorious presence of the Eternal linger among us forever.
And may He rejoice in the greatness of His own works—
32 He, who rattles the earth with a glance;
He, who sets mountains to smoking with a touch.
33 I will sing to the Eternal all of my life;
I will call my God good as long as I live.
The last phrase of Psalm 104, “Praise the Eternal,” gives us a clear picture of the use of these songs in Israel. This phrase, which not only ends Psalm 104 but often opens and closes other psalms (for example, Psalms 146–150), is not part of the song itself. It is a direction for worship.
The Bible indicates that praise is the natural response to God’s gifts to His people. When David brought the covenant chest to Jerusalem, he appointed Asaph and his relatives to lead in praise. After the Levites chanted a marvelous psalm, the people responded in praise to the Eternal (1 Chronicles 16:36). In John’s vision of the final destruction of Babylon—a symbol for God’s enemies throughout all the ages—a vast number of creatures in heaven, the 24 elders and the 4 living creatures offer praise and adoration to the Lord (Revelation 18 and 19). Praise is simply the inevitable response of God’s people to all He is and all He has done.
34 May the thoughts of my mind be pleasing to Him,
for the Eternal has become my happiness.
35 But may those who hate Him, who act against Him,
disappear from the face of this beautiful planet.
As for the Eternal, call Him good, my soul.
Praise the Eternal!
17 Elijah the Tishbite, one of the Gilead settlers, spoke to Ahab.
Slowly the Israelite kings are drifting further and further away from God’s laws. Hoping to remedy this, the Lord sends a prophet to guide the kings. That prophet, Elijah, certainly lives up to his name, proclaiming his God (Eli) is the Eternal (jah)—Eli-jah. He uses many methods: demonstrating God’s power through miracles, reminding of God’s purpose through oracles, and acting out God’s will through his appearance. While his guidance sometimes reminds kings of the correct path and helps them return to it, ultimately nothing he can do will stop the Northern Kingdom’s destruction.
Elijah: As the Eternal lives—the True God who gives life to the Israelites, the God whom I serve—no rain or dew will touch the earth unless I give word.
The Baal cult is prominent both with the monarchy and with the general populace, so Elijah’s claims are extraordinary to people who believe Baal is the deity who provides or withholds rain.
2 The Eternal One gave him this message:
Eternal One: 3 I want you to travel away from this place and go east. Keep yourself hidden near the Cherith stream, east of the Jordan. 4 You will have water from the stream during this drought, and I will tell the birds to take care of you while you are hiding there.
5 Elijah did just as the Eternal had instructed him to do. He lived near the Cherith stream, east of the Jordan. 6 The ravens did take care of him while he was there, just as the Lord said, bringing him a meal of bread and meat at sunrise and another meal of bread and meat at sunset. He satisfied his thirst by drinking from the stream. 7 Soon the stream became dry because of the drought.
8 The Eternal One gave him this message:
Eternal One: 9 Get up, and travel to Zarephath. It is in the possession of Sidon, which is outside Israel. Remain there, and do not leave for any reason. There is a widow in Zarephath whom I have told to take care of you.
10 Elijah got up and immediately traveled to Zarephath. He arrived at the city gate, and at that moment, a widow was picking up sticks nearby.
Elijah: Please bring me some water in a jar to quench my thirst.
11 (as she fetched the water) Also, could you please bring me a piece of bread?
Woman: 12 As certain as the Eternal One, your True God lives, I don’t have any bread. In fact, I am starving. I don’t have anything except for a bit of flour in a bowl and a few drops of oil in a jar. I was gathering sticks when you arrived to make a fire so that my son and I could eat one last bite of food and then die. It’s all over for us.
Elijah: 13 I assure you that it’s not over for you yet. Don’t be afraid. Continue what you were doing, but make a small bread cake for me first, and bring it here to me. Then you and your son may eat your own bread cakes. 14 This is the message of the Eternal God of Israel: “The flour and the oil will not run out until the moment when the Eternal showers the earth with rain.”
15 She did exactly as Elijah had instructed her to do, and everyone who lived in her house had food for days. 16 The bowl of flour and the jar of oil did not run out, just as the Eternal had said through Elijah.
6 Right now, brothers and sisters, the best thing I can do for you is to apply these principles to the situation with Apollos and me. Maybe we can show you the meaning of the saying, “not beyond the things written.” If you learn that, perhaps none of you will swell with pride because you fall into the seductive trap of pitting one against the other. 7 Is there any reason to consider yourselves better than others? What do you have that you didn’t receive? If you received it as a gift, why do you boast like it is something you achieved on your own?
8 Now let’s see if I have it straight. You suppose that you already have all you need. You already are rich and prosperous. And without us you’ve already begun to reign like kings. To be honest, I wish you did reign so that we could reign with you 9 because it seems to me that God has put His emissaries[a] at the end of the line, like convicts in their final walk to certain death. We have become a spectacle to the rest of the world—to all people and heaven’s messengers. 10 We are nothing but fools for the cause of the Anointed One while you are wise in Him. Am I right? We are feeble and tired while you are mighty and full of life. You are well respected by others while we’re treated as contemptuous creatures by pretty much everyone everywhere. 11 Up to this very minute, we are famished, we are thirsty, and our clothes are shabby, practically rotted to pieces. We are homeless, hapless wanderers. 12 But still we labor, working with our hands to meet our needs because, despite all of this, when a fist is raised against us, we respond with a blessing; when we face violence and persecution, we stay on mission; and 13 when others choose taunts and slander against us, we speak words of encouragement and reconciliation. We’re treated as the scum of the earth—and I am not talking in the past tense; I mean today! We’re the scraps of society, nothing more than the foulest human rubbish.
Paul explains and exemplifies the goals of a mature believer in a way that may be easily contrasted with the desires of an immature believer. He is seeking love and truth more than popularity, embracing suffering rather than comfort. In fact, he disregards popularity and comfort completely so that he isn’t distracted from the love and truth of Jesus. This could be a powerful force in the world if believers embraced this kind of maturity.
14 I am not telling you all this so that you’ll feel guilty or be ashamed of how you have acted. I am only trying to warn you, just as a father would warn his children. 15 You may have 10,000 instructors in the faith of the Anointed One, but you have only one father. In Jesus the Anointed I have become your father through my efforts in spreading the good news. 16 So as your father in the faith, I want to encourage you to live as I have lived. Imitate my life. 17 This is one of the reasons I sent Timothy to be with you. He is my dearly loved and faithful child in the Lord. His mission is to remind you of the way I experience life in the Anointed. In all the churches everywhere I go, I teach the same lessons the same way, and I live out those lessons. 18 But the reality is, some of you have put yourselves on pedestals and live like you are high above the rest—it’s as if you assumed I would not return to confront your misguided pride. 19 But I am coming. Lord willing, I will be with you soon. Then I will know what power is backing those arrogant folks and their words. 20 The kingdom of God is not a realm of grandiose talk; it is a realm of power. 21 So tell me what you want. Should I visit you, rod in hand ready to discipline a crew of self-important people; or should I embrace you, love you, and gently teach you as we celebrate the blessings of God together?
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.