Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 14
For the worship leader. A song of David.
This is a wisdom psalm that grieves over the pervasiveness of sin and its sad effects. It is repeated with minor changes in Psalm 53. Paul refers to this Davidic psalm to explain how all of humanity is tainted by sin (Romans 3:1–12).
1 A wicked and foolish man truly believes there is no God.
They are vile, their sinfulness nauseating to their Creator;
their actions are soiled and repulsive; every deed is depraved;
not one of them does good.
2 The Eternal leans over from heaven to survey the sons of Adam.
No one is missed, and no one can hide.
He searches to see who understands true wisdom,
who desires to know the True God.
3 They all turn their backs, walking their own roads;
they are rancid, leaving a trail of rotten footsteps behind them;
not one of them does good,
not even one.
4 Do the wicked have no clue about what really matters?
They devour my brothers and sisters the way a man eats his dinner.
They ignore the Eternal and don’t call on Him, rejecting His reality and truth.
5 They shall secretly tremble behind closed doors, hearts beating hard within their chests,
knowing that God always avenges the upright.
6 You laugh at the counsel of the poor, the needy, the troubled who put their trust in God.
You try to take away their only hope,
but the Eternal is a strong shelter in the heaviest storm.
7 May a new day, a day of deliverance come for Israel, starting with Zion.
When the Eternal breaks the chains of His oppressed people,
the family of Jacob will rejoice, and Israel will be delighted.
20 (to Jerusalem) Now look to the north and see who is marching toward you.
Where is the beautiful flock that was entrusted to you?
21 What will you say when He appoints your so-called allies,
the very ones you trained, to rule over you?
Will not the pain stab at you
as it does a woman in childbirth?
22 When you begin to ask yourself, “Why is all this happening to me?”
know this: it is because of the weight of your sins.
This is why your enemies will tear off your skirts and violate your bodies.
23 And still, you will not change.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin?
Can a leopard change its spots?
It seems just as unlikely that you will change your ways and do good,
when you are so used to doing evil—it has become such a part of you.
24 Eternal One (to His people): This is why I will scatter you
like chaff driven by the desert wind.
25 This is now your fate—retribution measured out for you from the Eternal—
for you have forgotten Me and trusted in the lies of another.
26 For all this, I will be the One who lifts your skirts over your face,
exposing you and letting others see your disgrace.
27 As for your faithlessness, your adulteries and your lustful ways,
as for the degrading way you prostitute yourself to other gods out in the open, I see it all.
For all this, your fate is sealed. O Jerusalem—how bad it will be for you!
How long before you are clean again?
1 Paul, an emissary[a] of Jesus the Anointed commissioned by order of God our Savior and Jesus the Anointed, our living and certain hope), 2 to you, Timothy, my true son in the faith.
May the grace, mercy, and peace that come only from God the Father and our Lord Jesus the Anointed mark your life.
3 As I said that day I left for Macedonia, stay in Ephesus and instruct the unruly people in the church, once and for all, to stop teaching a different doctrine. 4 Tell them to turn away from fables and endless genealogies. These activities just cause more arguments and confusion. Instead, they should concern themselves with welcoming in and bringing about the reign of God, which is all about faith. 5 Our teaching about this journey is intended to bring us to a single destination—a place where self-giving love reigns from a pure heart, a clean conscience, and a genuine faith. 6 Yes, some have walked away from these traits and have fallen into a life of endless blabber and nonsense— 7 they wish to become scholars of the law, but they don’t know what they are talking about, and they make these grand pronouncements but clearly don’t understand what they just said.
8 You and I know the law is good (if used in the right way), and 9 we also know the law was not designed for law-abiding people but for lawbreakers and criminals, the ungodly and sin-filled, the unholy and worldly, the father killers and mother killers, the murderers, 10 the sexually immoral and homosexuals, slave dealers, liars, perjurers, and anyone else who acts against the sound doctrine 11 laid out in the glorious, holy, and pure good news of the blessed God that has been entrusted to me.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.