Old/New Testament
26 Dismiss all the charges against me, Lord, for I have tried to keep your laws and have trusted you without wavering. 2 Cross-examine me, O Lord, and see that this is so; test my motives and affections too. 3 For I have taken your loving-kindness and your truth as my ideals. 4 I do not have fellowship with tricky, two-faced men; they are false and hypocritical. 5 I hate the sinners’ hangouts and refuse to enter them. 6 I wash my hands to prove my innocence and come before your altar, 7 singing a song of thanksgiving and telling about your miracles.
8 Lord, I love your home, this shrine where the brilliant, dazzling splendor of your presence lives.
9-10 Don’t treat me as a common sinner or murderer who plots against the innocent and demands bribes.
11 No, I am not like that, O Lord; I try to walk a straight and narrow path of doing what is right; therefore in mercy save me.
12 I publicly praise the Lord for keeping me from slipping and falling.
27 The Lord is my light and my salvation; he protects me from danger—whom shall I fear? 2 When evil men come to destroy me, they will stumble and fall! 3 Yes, though a mighty army marches against me, my heart shall know no fear! I am confident that God will save me.
4 The one thing I want from God, the thing I seek most of all, is the privilege of meditating in his Temple, living in his presence every day of my life, delighting in his incomparable perfections and glory. 5 There I’ll be when troubles come. He will hide me. He will set me on a high rock 6 out of reach of all my enemies. Then I will bring him sacrifices and sing his praises with much joy.
7 Listen to my pleading, Lord! Be merciful and send the help I need.
8 My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me, O my people.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”
9 Oh, do not hide yourself when I am trying to find you. Do not angrily reject your servant. You have been my help in all my trials before; don’t leave me now. Don’t forsake me, O God of my salvation. 10 For if my father and mother should abandon me, you would welcome and comfort me.
11 Tell me what to do, O Lord, and make it plain because I am surrounded by waiting enemies. 12 Don’t let them get me, Lord! Don’t let me fall into their hands! For they accuse me of things I never did, and all the while are plotting cruelty. 13 I am expecting the Lord to rescue me again, so that once again I will see his goodness to me here in the land of the living.
14 Don’t be impatient. Wait for the Lord, and he will come and save you! Be brave, stouthearted, and courageous. Yes, wait and he will help you.
28 I plead with you to help me, Lord, for you are my Rock of safety. If you refuse to answer me, I might as well give up and die. 2 Lord, I lift my hands to heaven[a] and implore your help. Oh, listen to my cry.
3 Don’t punish me with all the wicked ones who speak so sweetly to their neighbors while planning to murder them. 4 Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it out to them in proportion to their wickedness; pay them back for all their evil deeds. 5 They care nothing for God or what he has done or what he has made; therefore God will dismantle them like old buildings, never to be rebuilt again.
6 Oh, praise the Lord, for he has listened to my pleadings! 7 He is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trusted in him, and he helped me. Joy rises in my heart until I burst out in songs of praise to him. 8 The Lord protects his people and gives victory to his anointed king.
9 Defend your people, Lord; defend and bless your chosen ones. Lead them like a shepherd and carry them forever in your arms.
22 “Brothers and fathers, listen to me as I offer my defense.” 2 (When they heard him speaking in Hebrew, the silence was even greater.) 3 “I am a Jew,” he said, “born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, but educated here in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, at whose feet I learned to follow our Jewish laws and customs very carefully. I became very anxious to honor God in everything I did, just as you have tried to do today. 4 And I persecuted the Christians, hounding them to death, binding and delivering both men and women to prison. 5 The High Priest or any member of the Council can testify that this is so. For I asked them for letters to the Jewish leaders in Damascus, with instructions to let me bring any Christians I found to Jerusalem in chains to be punished.
6 “As I was on the road, nearing Damascus, suddenly about noon a very bright light from heaven shone around me. 7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Paul, Paul, why are you persecuting me?’
8 “‘Who is it speaking to me, sir?’ I asked. And he replied, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, the one you are persecuting.’ 9 The men with me saw the light but didn’t understand what was said.
10 “And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’
“And the Lord told me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told what awaits you in the years ahead.’
11 “I was blinded by the intense light and had to be led into Damascus by my companions. 12 There a man named Ananias, as godly a man as you could find for obeying the law and well thought of by all the Jews of Damascus, 13 came to me, and standing beside me said, ‘Brother Paul, receive your sight!’ And that very hour I could see him!
14 “Then he told me, ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Messiah[a] and hear him speak. 15 You are to take his message everywhere, telling what you have seen and heard. 16 And now, why delay? Go and be baptized and be cleansed from your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’
17-18 “One day after my return to Jerusalem, while I was praying in the Temple, I fell into a trance and saw a vision of God saying to me, ‘Hurry! Leave Jerusalem, for the people here won’t believe you when you give them my message.’
19 “‘But Lord,’ I argued, ‘they certainly know that I imprisoned and beat those in every synagogue who believed on you. 20 And when your witness Stephen was killed, I was standing there agreeing—keeping the coats they laid aside as they stoned him.’
21 “But God said to me,
22 The crowd listened until Paul came to that word, then with one voice they shouted, “Away with such a fellow! Kill him! He isn’t fit to live!” 23 They yelled and threw their coats in the air and tossed up handfuls of dust.
24 So the commander brought him inside and ordered him lashed with whips to make him confess his crime. He wanted to find out why the crowd had become so furious!
25 As they tied Paul down to lash him, Paul said to an officer standing there, “Is it legal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been tried?”
26 The officer went to the commander and asked, “What are you doing? This man is a Roman citizen!”
27 So the commander went over and asked Paul, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
“Yes, I certainly am.”
28 “I am too,” the commander muttered, “and it cost me plenty!”
“But I am a citizen by birth!”
29 The soldiers standing ready to lash him, quickly disappeared when they heard Paul was a Roman citizen, and the commander was frightened because he had ordered him bound and whipped.
30 The next day the commander freed him from his chains and ordered the chief priests into session with the Jewish Council. He had Paul brought in before them to try to find out what the trouble was all about.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.