Psalms

¹ Your love, God, is my song, and I'll sing it! I'm forever telling everyone how faithful you are.

² how you built the cosmos and guaranteed everything in it. Your love has always been our lives' foundation, your fidelity has been the roof over our world.

³ I pledged my word to my servant, David, saying,

⁴ I'll make your rule as solid and lasting as rock.' "

⁵ the choir of holy angels sing anthems to your faithful ways!

⁶ you'll find nothing and no one quite like God.

⁷ he looms immense and august over everyone around him.

⁸ powerful and faithful from every angle?

⁹ and calm its waves when they turn unruly.

¹⁰ you brushed off your enemies with a flick of your wrist.

¹¹ everything from atom to archangel.

¹² the mountains Tabor and Hermon sing duets to you.

¹³ nobody trifles with you!

¹⁴ Love and Truth are its fruits.

¹⁵ who shout on parade in the bright presence of God.

¹⁶ who you are, what you do—they can't keep it quiet!

¹⁷ you've been so good to us! We're walking on air!

¹⁸ Holy God of Israel, our King!

¹⁹ you spoke to your faithful beloved: "I've crowned a hero, I chose the best I could find;

²⁰ poured holy oil on his head,

²¹ yes, I'll stick with him through thick and thin.

²² no scoundrel will do him in.

²³ I'll clean out all who hate him.

²⁴ I've set him on high—he's riding high!

²⁵ I've put Ocean in his one hand, River in the other;

²⁶ he'll call out, 'Oh, my Father—my God, my Rock of Salvation!'

²⁷ High King over all of earth's kings.

²⁸ I'll faithfully do all I so solemnly promised.

²⁹ and underwrite his rule.

³⁰ if they refuse to walk in the way I show them,

³¹ and tear up the rules I post for them

³² and make them face the music.

³³ never abandon or disown them.

³⁴ or take back words I'd already spoken?

³⁵ do you think I would lie to David?

³⁶ his sovereignty as sure as the sun,

³⁷ inescapable as weather."

³⁸ you lost your temper with the one you anointed.

³⁹ you stomped his crown in the mud.

⁴⁰ reduced his city to a pile of rubble

⁴¹ a joke to all the neighbors.

⁴² and they're celebrating for all they're worth.

⁴³ refused to fight on his side;

⁴⁴ ground his kingly honor in the dirt.

⁴⁵ and left him an impotent, ruined husk.

⁴⁶ Are you gone for good? Will you hold this grudge forever?

⁴⁷ Did you create men and women for nothing but this?

⁴⁸ And there's no back door out of hell.

⁴⁹ What happened to your promise to David?

⁵⁰ I'm the butt of the jokes of all nations,

⁵¹ as they dog the steps of your dear anointed.

⁵² Yes. Oh, yes.