Bible in a Year · Day 189 of 365
Today’s reading: Psalms 93–95 (3 chapters)
Read the passage below, or open your own Bible and follow along. The text here is the World English Bible, a public-domain translation, printed in full so the day’s reading is all on one page.
About Psalms
The Psalms are the Bible's prayer book, one hundred and fifty songs and poems gathered into five books. They cover more emotional ground than any other part of Scripture: praise, complaint, rage, repentance, trust, and silence. Some were written by David and carry the marks of his life, others come from temple worship or later editors, and many were sung by the congregation rather than read alone. Taken together they teach a person how to speak to God when everything is going well and when it is not. Many of them do not resolve neatly, which is part of their honesty.
What to watch for. Watch how many psalms begin in distress and end in praise, and how many do not. Notice the psalmists addressing God directly rather than talking about him, and let the complaints be as instructive as the thanksgiving.
Psalms 93
1Yahweh reigns! He is clothed with majesty! Yahweh is armed with strength. The world also is established. It can’t be moved. 2Your throne is established from long ago. You are from everlasting. 3The floods have lifted up, Yahweh, the floods have lifted up their voice. The floods lift up their waves. 4Above the voices of many waters, the mighty breakers of the sea, Yahweh on high is mighty. 5Your statutes stand firm. Holiness adorns your house, Yahweh, forever more.
Psalms 94
1Yahweh, you God to whom vengeance belongs, you God to whom vengeance belongs, shine out. 2Rise up, you judge of the earth. Pay back the proud what they deserve. 3Yahweh, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph? 4They pour out arrogant words. All the evildoers boast. 5They break your people in pieces, Yahweh, and afflict your heritage.
6They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless. 7They say, “Yah will not see, neither will Jacob’s God consider.” 8Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise? 9He who implanted the ear, won’t he hear? He who formed the eye, won’t he see? 10He who disciplines the nations, won’t he punish? He who teaches man knows.
11Yahweh knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile. 12Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah, and teach out of your law; 13that you may give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit is dug for the wicked. 14For Yahweh won’t reject his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. 15For judgment will return to righteousness. All the upright in heart shall follow it.
16Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will stand up for me against the evildoers? 17Unless Yahweh had been my help, my soul would have soon lived in silence. 18When I said, “My foot is slipping!” Your loving kindness, Yahweh, held me up. 19In the multitude of my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul. 20Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, which brings about mischief by statute?
21They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. 22But Yahweh has been my high tower, my God, the rock of my refuge. 23He has brought on them their own iniquity, and will cut them off in their own wickedness. Yahweh, our God, will cut them off.
Psalms 95
1Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh. Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation! 2Let’s come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let’s extol him with songs! 3For Yahweh is a great God, a great King above all gods. 4In his hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the mountains are also his. 5The sea is his, and he made it. His hands formed the dry land.
6Oh come, let’s worship and bow down. Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker, 7for he is our God. We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep in his care. Today, oh that you would hear his voice! 8Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, 9when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work. 10Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people that errs in their heart. They have not known my ways.”
11Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They won’t enter into my rest.”
Next · Day 190: Psalms 96–99 →
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), a public-domain translation. Day numbering follows the calendar year; you can start at Day 1 on any date.
