Friday, December 20, 2013

Job 35 (TLB)

2-3 “Do you think it is right for you to claim, ‘I haven’t sinned, but I’m no better off before God than if I had’?

“I will answer you and all your friends too. Look up there into the sky, high above you. If you sin, does that shake the heavens and knock God from his throne? Even if you sin again and again, what effect will it have upon him? Or if you are good, is this some great gift to Him? Your sins may hurt another man, or your good deeds may profit him. 9-10 The oppressed may shriek beneath their wrongs and groan beneath the power of the rich; yet none of them cry to God, asking, ‘Where is God my Maker who gives songs in the night 11 and makes us a little wiser than the animals and birds?’

12 “But when anyone does cry out this question to Him, He never replies by instant punishment of the tyrants. 13 But it is false to say He doesn’t hear those cries; 14-15 and it is even more false to say that He doesn’t see what is going on. He does bring about justice at last if you will only wait. But do you cry out against Him because He does not instantly respond in anger? 16 Job, you have spoken like a fool.”

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Psalms 39

I said, “I will guard my ways,
Lest I sin with my tongue;
I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle,
While the wicked are before me.”
I was mute with silence,
I held my peace even from good;
And my sorrow was stirred up.
My heart was hot within me;
While I was musing, the fire burned.
Then I spoke with my tongue:
Lord, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am.
Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my age is as nothing before You;
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.Selah
Surely every man walks about like a shadow;
Surely they busy themselves in vain;
He heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them.
“And now, Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in You.
Deliver me from all my transgressions;
Do not make me the reproach of the foolish.
I was mute, I did not open my mouth,
Because it was You who did it.
10 Remove Your plague from me;
I am consumed by the blow of Your hand.
11 When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity,
You make his beauty melt away like a moth;
Surely every man is vapor. Selah
12 “Hear my prayer, O Lord,
And give ear to my cry;
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner, as all my fathers were.
13 Remove Your gaze from me, that I may regain strength,
Before I go away and am no more.”