Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 29
A song of David.
1 Give all credit to the Eternal, O heavenly creatures;
give praise to Him for His glory and power.
2 Give to the Eternal the glory due His name;
worship Him with lavish displays of sacred splendor.
3 The voice of the Eternal echoes over the great waters;
God’s magnificence roars like thunder.
The Eternal’s presence hovers over all the waters.
4 His voice explodes in great power over the earth.
His voice is both regal and grand.
5 The Eternal’s voice shatters the cedars;
His power splinters the great cedars of Lebanon.
6 He speaks, and Lebanon leaps like a young calf;
Sirion jumps like a wild, youthful ox.
7 The voice of the Eternal cuts through with flames of fire.
8 The voice of the Eternal rumbles through the wilderness
with great quakes;
He causes Kadesh to tremble.
9 The Eternal’s voice brings life from the doe’s womb;
His voice strips the forest bare,
and all the people in the temple declare, “Glory!”
10 The Eternal is enthroned over the great flood;
His reign is unending.
11 We ask You, Eternal One, to give strength to Your people;
Eternal One, bless them with the gift of peace.
1 This is the vision that Isaiah (son of Amoz) saw and what he prophesied about Judah and Jerusalem during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in Judah:
In the time of Isaiah, prophets are known to be astute observers of their particular times and places. They speak what they understand to be God’s words to the people about how their thoughts and actions, especially their actions, relate to God’s expectations for them. When the people fall short of such expectations, prophets tell them what God thinks and what the consequences might be.
2 Listen and take note,
from the farthest reaches to the nearest!
Listen up heaven and earth,
for the Eternal One has spoken.
He is not happy with the children He raised.
Eternal One: Despite all I’ve done,
My children have rebelled against Me.
3 Oxen know their owners;
even donkeys know where their master feeds them,
But Israel is ignorant.
My very own, they ignore Me.
4 Truly this is a wicked nation,
a people fat with wrongdoing,
Like a litter of miscreants,
a pack of wilding adolescents.
They’ve rejected the Eternal,
despised the Holy One of Israel;
they’ve turned their backs on Him.
16 Wash yourselves, clean up your lives;
remove every speck of evil in what you do before Me.
Put an end to all your evil.
17 Learn to do good;
commit yourselves to seeking justice.
Make right for the world’s most vulnerable—
the oppressed, the orphaned, the widow.
18 Come on now, let’s walk and talk; let’s work this out.
Your wrongdoings are bloodred,
But they can turn as white as snow.
Your sins are red like crimson,
But they can be made clean again like new wool.
19 If you pay attention now and change your ways,
you can eat good things from a healthy earth.
20 But if you refuse to listen and stubbornly persist,
then, by violence and war, you will be the one devoured.
These things were spoken by the very mouth of the Eternal.
8 Therefore, now no condemnation awaits those who are living in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King, 2 because when you live in the Anointed One, Jesus, a new law takes effect. The law of the Spirit of life breathes into you and liberates you from the law of sin and death. 3 God did something the law could never do. You see, human flesh took its toll on God’s law. In and of itself, the law is not weak; but the flesh weakens it. So to condemn the sin that was ruling in the flesh, God sent His own Son, bearing the likeness of sinful flesh, as a sin offering. 4 Now we are able to live up to the justice demanded by the law. But that ability has not come from living by our fallen human nature; it has come because we walk according to the movement of the Spirit in our lives.
5 If you live your life animated by the flesh—namely, your fallen, corrupt nature—then your mind is focused on the matters of the flesh. But if you live your life animated by the Spirit—namely, God’s indwelling presence—then your focus is on the work of the Spirit. 6 A mind focused on the flesh is doomed to death, but a mind focused on the Spirit will find full life and complete peace. 7 You see, a mind focused on the flesh is declaring war against God; it defies the authority of God’s law and is incapable of following His path. 8 So it is clear that God takes no pleasure in those who live oriented to the flesh.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.