Old/New Testament

72 O God, help the king to judge as you would, and help his son to walk in godliness. ² Help him to give justice to your people, even to the poor. ³ May the mountains and hills flourish in prosperity because of his good reign. ⁴ Help him to defend the poor and needy and to crush their oppressors. ⁵ May the poor and needy revere you constantly, as long as sun and moon continue in the skies! Yes, forever!

⁶ May the reign of this son of mine^[a] be as gentle and fruitful as the springtime rains upon the grass—like showers that water the earth! ⁷ May all good men flourish in his reign with abundance of peace to the end of time.

⁸ Let him reign from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. ⁹ The desert nomads shall bow before him; his enemies shall fall face downward in the dust. ¹⁰ Kings along the Mediterranean coast—the kings of Tarshish and the islands—and those from Sheba and from Seba—all will bring their gifts. ¹¹ Yes, kings from everywhere! All will bow before him! All will serve him!

¹² He will take care of the helpless and poor when they cry to him; for they have no one else to defend them. ¹³ He feels pity for the weak and needy and will rescue them. ¹⁴ He will save them from oppression and from violence, for their lives are precious to him.

¹⁵ And he shall live; and to him will be given the gold of Sheba, and there will be constant praise for him.^[b] His people will bless him all day long. ¹⁶ Bless us with abundant crops throughout the land, even on the highland plains; may there be fruit like that of Lebanon; may the cities be as full of people as the fields are of grass. ¹⁷ His name will be honored forever; it will continue as the sun; and all will be blessed in him; all nations will praise him.

¹⁸ Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of Israel, who only does wonderful things! ¹⁹ Blessed be his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen!

²⁰ (This ends the psalms of David, son of Jesse.)

73 How good God is to Israel—to those whose hearts are pure. ² But as for me, I came so close to the edge of the cliff! My feet were slipping and I was almost gone. ³ For I was envious of the prosperity of the proud and wicked. ⁴ Yes, all through life their road is smooth!^[c] They grow sleek and fat. ⁵ They aren’t always in trouble and plagued with problems like everyone else, ⁶ so their pride sparkles like a jeweled necklace, and their clothing is woven of cruelty! ⁷ These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for! ⁸ They scoff at God and threaten his people. How proudly they speak! ⁹ They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut through the earth.

¹⁰ And so God’s people are dismayed and confused and drink it all in. ¹¹ “Does God realize what is going on?” they ask. ¹² “Look at these men of arrogance; they never have to lift a finger—theirs is a life of ease; and all the time their riches multiply.”

¹³ Have I been wasting my time? Why take the trouble to be pure? ¹⁴ All I get out of it is trouble and woe—every day and all day long! ¹⁵ If I had really said that, I would have been a traitor to your people. ¹⁶ Yet it is so hard to explain it—this prosperity of those who hate the Lord. ¹⁷ Then one day I went into God’s sanctuary to meditate and thought about the future of these evil men. ¹⁸ What a slippery path they are on—suddenly God will send them sliding over the edge of the cliff and down to their destruction: ¹⁹ an instant end to all their happiness, an eternity of terror. ²⁰ Their present life is only a dream! They will awaken to the truth as one awakens from a dream of things that never really were!

²¹ When I saw this, what turmoil filled my heart! ²² I saw myself so stupid and so ignorant; I must seem like an animal to you, O God. ²³ But even so, you love me! You are holding my right hand! ²⁴ You will keep on guiding me all my life with your wisdom and counsel, and afterwards receive me into the glories of heaven!^{[d] 25} Whom have I in heaven but you? And I desire no one on earth as much as you! ²⁶ My health fails; my spirits droop, yet God remains! He is the strength of my heart; he is mine forever!

²⁷ But those refusing to worship God will perish, for he destroys those serving other gods.

²⁸ But as for me, I get as close to him as I can! I have chosen him, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful ways he rescues me.

9 ^1-3 O Israel, my people! O my Jewish brothers! How I long for you to come to Christ. My heart is heavy within me, and I grieve bitterly day and night because of you. Christ knows and the Holy Spirit knows that it is no mere pretense when I say that I would be willing to be forever damned if that would save you. ⁴ God has given you so much, but still you will not listen to him. He took you as his own special, chosen people and led you along with a bright cloud of glory and told you how very much he wanted to bless you. He gave you his rules for daily life so you would know what he wanted you to do. He let you worship him and gave you mighty promises. ⁵ Great men of God were your fathers, and Christ himself was one of you, a Jew so far as his human nature is concerned, he who now rules over all things. Praise God forever!

⁶ Well then, has God failed to fulfill his promises to the Jews? No! For these promises are only to those who are truly Jews.^[a] And not everyone born into a Jewish family is truly a Jew! ⁷ Just the fact that they come from Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children. For the Scriptures say that the promises apply only to Abraham’s son Isaac and Isaac’s descendants, though Abraham had other children too. ⁸ This means that not all of Abraham’s children are children of God, but only those who believe the promise of salvation which he made to Abraham.

⁹ For God had promised, “Next year I will give you and Sarah a son.” ^10-13 And years later, when this son Isaac was grown up and married and Rebecca his wife was about to bear him twin children, God told her that Esau, the child born first, would be a servant to Jacob, his twin brother. In the words of the Scripture, “I chose to bless Jacob but not Esau.” And God said this before the children were even born, before they had done anything either good or bad. This proves that God was doing what he had decided from the beginning; it was not because of what the children did but because of what God wanted and chose.

¹⁴ Was God being unfair? Of course not. ¹⁵ For God had said to Moses, “If I want to be kind to someone, I will. And I will take pity on anyone I want to.”