Gifts from the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 12:1-11) The Message Translation

1-3    What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be damned!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit.

4-11   God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:  

wise counsel (Wisdom)
clear understanding (Knowledge)
simple trust (Faith)
healing the sick (Healing)
miraculous acts (Miracles)
proclamation (Prophecy)
distinguishing between spirits (Discernment)
tongues  (Speaking in Tongues)
interpretation of tongues. (Interpretation  of Tongues)

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.

The Life of Freedom (Galatians 5:1-15) The Message Translation

1      Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

2-3   I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.

4-6   I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

7-10  You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.

11-12  As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!

13-15  It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

God Sent His Son (Galatians 4:1-7) The Message Translation

1-3  Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance, he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation. That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives.

4-7  But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.

In Christ's Family (Galatians 3: 21-29) The Message Translation

21-22  If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.
23-24  Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law. The law was like those Greek tutors, with which you are familiar, who escort children to school and protect them from danger or distraction, making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for.
25-27  But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.
28-29  In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises.

The Law and the Promise (Galatians 3:15-20) The Message Translation

15-18  Friends, let me give you an example from everyday affairs of the free life I am talking about. Once a person’s will has been ratified, no one else can annul it or add to it. Now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendant. You will observe that Scripture, in the careful language of a legal document, does not say “to descendants,” referring to everybody in general, but “to your descendant” (the noun, note, is singular), referring to Christ. This is the way I interpret this: A will, earlier ratified by God, is not annulled by an addendum attached 430 years later, thereby negating the promise of the will. No, this addendum, with its instructions and regulations, has nothing to do with the promised inheritance in the will.

18-20  What is the point, then, of the law, the attached addendum? It was a thoughtful addition to the original covenant promises made to Abraham. The purpose of the law was to keep a sinful people in the way of salvation until Christ (the descendant) came, inheriting the promises and distributing them to us. Obviously this law was not a firsthand encounter with God. It was arranged by angelic messengers through a middleman, Moses. But if there is a middleman as there was at Sinai, then the people are not dealing directly with God, are they? But the original promise is the direct blessing of God, received by faith.

Trust in Christ, Not the Law (Galatians 3:1-14) The Message Translation

 1     You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

2-4     Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

5-6     Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.

7-8     Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith? It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed in you.”

9-10    So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: “Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law.”

11-12  The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.” Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”

13-14   Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.

Jesus’ Prayer for His Followers (John 17) The Message Translation

1-5     Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said:  Father, it’s time.  Display the bright splendor of your Son.  So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor.  You put him in charge of everything human.   So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge.  And this is the real and eternal life:  That they know you, The one and only true God, And Jesus Christ, whom you sent.  I glorified you on earth By completing down to the last detail What you assigned me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendor, The very splendor I had in your presence
Before there was a world.

6-12  I spelled out your character in detail.  To the men and women you gave me.  They were yours in the first place; Then you gave them to me, And they have now done what you said.  They know now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, That everything you gave me is firsthand from you, For the message you gave me, I gave them; And they took it, and were convinced That I came from you.

They believed that you sent me.  I pray for them.  I’m not praying for the God-rejecting world.   But for those you gave me,  For they are yours by right.  Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, And my life is on display in them.  For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world; They’ll continue in the world.  While I return to you.  Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life That you conferred as a gift through me, So they can be one heart and mind As we are one heart and mind.  As long as I was with them, I guarded them In the pursuit of the life you gave through me; I even posted a night watch.  And not one of them got away, Except for the rebel bent on destruction (the exception that proved the rule of Scripture).

13-19   Now I’m returning to you.  I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing.   So my people can experience My joy completed in them.  I gave them your word; The godless world hated them because of it, Because they didn’t join the world’s ways, Just as I didn’t join the world’s ways. I’m not asking that you take them out of the world But that you guard them from the Evil One.  They are no more defined by the world Than I am defined by the world.  Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth;  Your word is consecrating truth.  In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world,

I give them a mission in the world.  I’m consecrating myself for their sakes So they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission.

I’m praying not only for them

20-23  But also for those who will believe in me.   Because of them and their witness about me.  The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us.  Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,  So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—I in them and you in me.  Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,   And give the godless world evidence  That you’ve sent me and loved them.  In the same way you’ve loved me.  

24-26    Father, I want those you gave me.   To be with me, right where I am, So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me, Having loved me Long before there ever was a world.  Righteous Father, the world has never known you, But I have known you, and these disciples know That you sent me on this mission.  I have made your very being known to them—Who you are and what you do—And continue to make it known,  So that your love for me Might be in them

Exactly as I am in them. 

The Spirit of Truth (John 14:15-31) The Message Translation

15-17  “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!

18-20  “I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.

21      “The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.”

22       Judas (not Iscariot) said, “Master, why is it that you are about to make yourself plain to us but not to the world?”

23-24  “Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we’ll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn’t mine. It’s the message of the Father who sent me.

25-27   “I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.

28    "You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.

29-31  “I’ve told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me. I’ll not be talking with you much more like this because the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don’t worry—he has nothing on me, no claim on me. But so the world might know how thoroughly I love the Father, I am carrying out my Father’s instructions right down to the last detail.  “Get up. Let’s go. It’s time to leave here.”

Jesus the Real Vine (John 15:1-17) The Message Translation

1-3   “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.

4    “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

5-8  “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

9-10  “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.

11-15  “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.

16    “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.

17    "But remember the root command: Love one another.

The Work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:1-15) The Message Translation

1-4    “I’ve told you these things to prepare you for rough times ahead. They are going to throw you out of the meeting places. There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he’s doing God a favor. They will do these things because they never really understood the Father. I’ve told you these things so that when the time comes and they start in on you, you’ll be well-warned and ready for them. 
4-7    “I didn’t tell you this earlier because I was with you every day. But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. Not one of you has asked, ‘Where are you going?’ Instead, the longer I’ve talked, the sadder you’ve become. So let me say it again, this truth: It’s better for you that I leave. If I don’t leave, the Friend won’t come. But if I go, I’ll send him to you.
8-11  “When he comes, he’ll expose the error of the godless world’s view of sin, righteousness, and judgment: He’ll show them that their refusal to believe in me is their basic sin; that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight and control; that judgment takes place as the ruler of this godless world is brought to trial and convicted.
12-15  “I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I’ve said, ‘He takes from me and delivers to you.’

The Lord Correct Those He Loves (Proverbs 3:3-26) The Message Translation

3-4    Don’t lose your grip on Love and Loyalty.  Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart.  Earn a reputation for living well in God’s eyes and the eyes of the people.

5-12  Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own.  Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.  Don’t assume that you know it all.  Run to God! Run from evil!  Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life!  Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best.  Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over.  But don’t, dear friend, resent God’s discipline; don’t sulk under his loving correction.  It’s the child he loves that God corrects;

 a father’s delight is behind all this.

13-18  You’re blessed when you meet Lady Wisdom, when you make friends with Madame Insight.

She’s worth far more than money in the bank; her friendship is better than a big salary.  Her value exceeds all the trappings of wealth; nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.  With one hand she gives long life, with the other she confers recognition.  Her manner is beautiful, her life wonderfully complete.  She’s the very Tree of Life to those who embrace her.  Hold her tight—and be blessed!

19-20  With Lady Wisdom, God formed Earth; with Madame Insight, he raised Heaven.  They knew when to signal rivers and springs to the surface, and dew to descend from the night skies.

21-26   Dear friend, guard Clear Thinking and Common Sense with your life; don’t for a minute lose sight of them.  They’ll keep your soul alive and well, they’ll keep you fit and attractive.  You’ll travel safely, you’ll neither tire nor trip.  You’ll take afternoon naps without a worry, you’ll enjoy a good night’s sleep.  No need to panic over alarms or surprises, or predictions that doomsday’s just around the corner,  Because God will be right there with you; he’ll keep you safe and sound.

Love Your Enemies (Matthew 5:43-48) The Message and Good News Translations

THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION
43-47  “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
48    “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION
43  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your friends, hate your enemies.’
44  But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 
45  so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. 
46  Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that! 
47  And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that! 
48  You must be perfect—just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

A Simple Guide for Behavior (Judging Others) Matthew 7:1-6 (The Message and Good News Translations)

THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION

1-5  "Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

6    “Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege.

GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION

1  “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, 

2  for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and he will apply to you the same rules you apply to others. 

3  Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? 

4  How dare you say to your brother, ‘Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when you have a log in your own eye? 

5  You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

6  “Do not give what is holy to dogs—they will only turn and attack you. Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs—they will only trample them underfoot.

God's Complete Knowledge and Care (Psalms 139) The Message Translation

1-6    God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.  I’m an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.  You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight.  You know everything I’m going to say before I start the first sentence.  I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too—your reassuring presence, coming and going.  This is too much, too wonderful—I can’t take it all in!

7-12  Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?  to be out of your sight?  If I climb to the sky, you’re there!  If I go underground, you’re there!  If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon,  You’d find me in a minute—you’re already there waiting!  Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!  At night I’m immersed in the light!”  It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;

 night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.  

13-16  Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb.  I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!  Body and soul, I am marvelously made!  I worship in adoration—what a creation!  You know me inside and out,  you know every bone in my body;  You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.  Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you,  The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.

17-22  Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!  God, I’ll never comprehend them!  I couldn’t even begin to count them—any more than I could count the sand of the sea.  Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!  And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!  And you murderers—out of here!—all the men and women who belittle you, God, infatuated with cheap god-imitations.

See how I hate those who hate you, God, see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;  I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.  Your enemies are my enemies!

23-24  Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me;  Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about;  See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—then guide me on the road to eternal life.

God's Glory and Man's Dignity (Psalms 8) The Message and Good News Translations

THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION

1    God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.

2    Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs  That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.

3-4  I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry,  Moon and stars mounted in their settings.  Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,  Why do you bother with us?  Why take a second look our way?

5-8  Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden’s dawn light.  You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge,  Made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild,  Birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.

9    God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.

GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION

1  O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world!  Your praise reaches up to the heavens;

2  it is sung by children and babies.  You are safe and secure from all your enemies;  you stop anyone who opposes you.

3  When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places—

4  what are human beings, that you think of them;  mere mortals, that you care for them?

5  Yet you made them inferior only to yourself;  you crowned them with glory and honor.

6  You appointed them rulers over everything you made;  you placed them over all creation:

7  sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too;  

8  the birds and the fish and the creatures in the seas.

9  O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world!

True Happiness (Psalms 1) The Message and Good News Translations

THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION

1     How well God must like you—you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon, you don’t slink along Dead-End Road, you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

2-3   Instead you thrill to God’s Word, you chew on Scripture day and night.  You’re a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month,  Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

4-5   You’re not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust—Without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people.

6     God charts the road you take.  The road they take is Skid Row.

GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION

1  Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners    or join those who have no use for God.

2  Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord, and they study it day and night.

3  They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up.  They succeed in everything they do.

4  But evil people are not like this at all; they are like straw that the wind blows away.

5  Sinners will be condemned by God and kept apart from God's own people.

6  The righteous are guided and protected by the Lord, but the evil are on the way to their doom.

A Song of Praise (Psalms 92) The Message and Good News Translations

THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION

1-3   What a beautiful thing, God, to give thanks, to sing an anthem to you, the High God!  To announce your love each daybreak, sing your faithful presence all through the night, Accompanied by dulcimer and harp, the full-bodied music of strings.

4-9  You made me so happy, God I saw your work and I shouted for joy.  How magnificent your work, God!  How profound your thoughts!  Dullards never notice what you do; fools never do get it.

When the wicked popped up like weeds and all the evil men and women took over,  You mowed them down, finished them off once and for all.  You, God, are High and Eternal.  Look at your enemies, God!  Look at your enemies—ruined!  Scattered to the winds, all those hirelings of evil!

10-14  But you’ve made me strong as a charging bison, you’ve honored me with a festive parade.

The sight of my critics going down is still fresh, the rout of my malicious detractors.  My ears are filled with the sounds of promise:  “Good people will prosper like palm trees, Grow tall like Lebanon cedars;  transplanted to God’s courtyard, They’ll grow tall in the presence of God, lithe and green, virile still in old age.”

15    Such witnesses to upright God!  My Mountain, my huge, holy Mountain!

GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION

1    How good it is to give thanks to you, O Lord, to sing in your honor, O Most High God,

2    to proclaim your constant love every morning and your faithfulness every night,

3    with the music of stringed instruments and with melody on the harp.

4    Your mighty deeds, O Lord, make me glad; because of what you have done, I sing for joy.

5    How great are your actions, Lord!  How deep are your thoughts!

6    This is something a fool cannot know;  someone who is stupid cannot understand:

7    the wicked may grow like weeds, those who do wrong may prosper; yet they will be totally destroyed,

8    because you, Lord, are supreme forever.

9    We know that your enemies will die, and all the wicked will be defeated.

10  You have made me as strong as a wild ox; you have blessed me with happiness.

11   I have seen the defeat of my enemies and heard the cries of the wicked.

12  The righteous will flourish like palm trees; they will grow like the cedars of Lebanon.

13  They are like trees planted in the house of the Lord, that flourish in the Temple of our God,

14   that still bear fruit in old age and are always green and strong.

15   This shows that the Lord is just, that there is no wrong in my protector.

Praise The Lord (Psalms 150) The Message Translation

1-6  Hallelujah!  Praise God in his holy house of worship, praise him under the open skies; Praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his magnificent greatness;  Praise with a blast on the trumpet, praise by strumming soft strings; Praise him with castanets and dance, praise him with banjo and flute; Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum, praise him with fiddles and mandolin.  Let every living, breathing creature praise God! 

    Hallelujah!

A Living Knowledge of God (Isaiah 11:1-10) The Message Translation

1-5    A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse’s stump, from his roots a budding Branch.  The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him, the Spirit that brings wisdom and understanding,  The Spirit that gives direction and builds strength, the Spirit that instills knowledge and Fear-of-God.  Fear-of-God will be all his joy and delight.  He won’t judge by appearances, won’t decide on the basis of hearsay.  He’ll judge the needy by what is right, render decisions on earth’s poor with justice.  His words will bring everyone to awed attention.  A mere breath from his lips will topple the wicked.  Each morning he’ll pull on sturdy work clothes and boots, and build righteousness and faithfulness in the land.
6-9   The wolf will romp with the lamb, the leopard sleep with the kid.  Calf and lion will eat from the same trough, and a little child will tend them.  Cow and bear will graze the same pasture, their calves and cubs grow up together, and the lion eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens, the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent.  Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill on my holy mountain.  The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive,
 a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.

The Lord Is The Everlasting God (Isaiah 40:21-31) The Message and Good News Translations

THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION

21-24   Have you not been paying attention?  Have you not been listening?  Haven’t you heard these stories all your life?  Don’t you understand the foundation of all things?  God sits high above the round ball of earth.  The people look like mere ants.  He stretches out the skies like a canvas—yes, like a tent canvas to live under.  He ignores what all the princes say and do.  The rulers of the earth count for nothing.  Princes and rulers don’t amount to much.  Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted.  They shrivel when God blows on them.  Like flecks of chaff, they’re gone with the wind.

25-26  “So—who is like me?  Who holds a candle to me?” says The Holy.  Look at the night skies:  Who do you think made all this?  Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name—so magnificent! so powerful!—and never overlooks a single one?

27-31   Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, “God has lost track of me.  He doesn’t care what happens to me”?  Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.  He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.  He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.  And he knows everything, inside and out.  He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts.  For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall.  But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.  They spread their wings and soar like eagles,  They run and don’t get tired, they walk and don’t lag behind.

GOOD NEWS TRANSLATION

21  Do you not know?  Were you not told long ago?  Have you not heard how the world began?

22  It was made by the one who sits on his throne above the earth and beyond the sky; the people below look as tiny as ants.  He stretched out the sky like a curtain,  like a tent in which to live.

23  He brings down powerful rulers and reduces them to nothing.

24  They are like young plants, just set out and barely rooted.  When the Lord sends a wind, they dry up and blow away like straw.

25  To whom can the holy God be compared?  Is there anyone else like him?

26   Look up at the sky!  Who created the stars you see?  The one who leads them out like an army, he knows how many there are and calls each one by name!  His power is so great—not one of them is ever missing!

27  Israel, why then do you complain that the Lord doesn't know your troubles or care if you suffer injustice?

28   Don't you know? Haven't you heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God; he created all the world.  He never grows tired or weary.  No one understands his thoughts.

29   He strengthens those who are weak and tired.

30   Even those who are young grow weak; young people can fall exhausted.

31   But those who trust in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed.  They will rise on wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary; they will walk and not grow weak.