Sunday, May 7, 2017

Psalms 63 and 64 from my new book:

A NEW LOOK AT THE OLD PSALMS
Praying the Psalms: a modern interpretation

A New Look at the Old Psalms

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I present here a new perspective on the psalms. I have rewritten them from a New 
Testament Christ-centered point of view. I did not try to capture the poetry of the 
psalms – I leave that to more gifted writers – but I attempted to capture their message
with a more modern interpretation.
God bless,
John
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Psalm 63

O
God, I long to be with you, so I wake up early in the morning to pray. Because the world is dreary, inaccessible and dry, I come before you to meditate upon your strength and magnificence. I praise you because you are so merciful. I will spend my whole life in prayer. My soul is filled with ecstasy as I lift my voice to you in joyful praise day and night. Because you have helped me and protected me so much, I cling to you. Your strong arm supports me in times of trouble. The devil, who seeks the ruin of my soul, will be banished to hell, and the wicked on earth will be destroyed. Christ, our King, and his followers will rejoice in you, Lord, for all you have done. The ungodly will be silenced. Amen.22

Psalm 64

(Jesus prays to the Father to help his Church defeat the devil and overcome their fears.)

" O
God, hear my prayer. Free your people from their fears. They fear their enemies who persecute them and they fear dying. Protect them now as you did in the past. The wicked attack the innocent verbally and plot to defeat them. They kill without provocation or fear of the consequences. They conspire and brag about their plans, the traps they have laid, and how well they have hidden them. They obsess over finding new ways of spreading their corruption. Yet their search has failed. Because of my sacrifice, good has prevailed over evil, and you are exalted.  People have turned back to you because they have seen how poor the ungodly have fared.

You have taken away their fear of dying as well, for they have seen that I live again. The grave could not hold me. Neither will it hold them. They have come to understand your great plan, the mystery of my life, death, and resurrection: if they follow my example, they will not lose their souls, but live for eternity in your presence. The righteous now have hope: hope in you who have saved them; and hope in their fellow men who have become a blessing, rather than a curse, because they now seek to do your will. Amen”23

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Cover image: Christ the Saviour (Pantokrator)." Web. 25 Sept 2016.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spas_vsederzhitel_sinay.jpg
"Creative Commons License." Web. 18 May 2016.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

22The Orthodox Study Bible. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008), 722.
23Ibid.

This book and other books I have written are posted for your reading pleasure at Booksie.

Scriptural quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, 
copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois
60189. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2016 by John P. Gross. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material must 
be done in its entirety with the copyright notice intact. This book is not for sale, but is 
offered to the public free of charge for the glory of God.

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