Monday, June 12, 2017

Psalm 1



I was up a bit earlier than usual today, and I took my coffee out to the deck.  Watching the sun come up over the trees and listening to a pine warbler singing, I was surrounded by a deep peace and feeling of oneness with nature.  After a few minutes I opened my newest Bible and felt pushed to read Psalm 1.  I've just purchased the Common English Bible and am exploring it.  I read this several times to myself, and I also read it aloud.  I find reading scripture aloud helps me hear it and understand it.  I sat with it for a bit, and then read it in my usual NRSV version.   I like both versions. I think both are true to the meaning intended.  I do like the way the NRSV titles the psalm "The Two Ways."

I have no great insight to share today.  Just the feeling of calmness and peace at the beginning of what promises to be a hot, busy day.
Psalm 1 - CEB
The truly happy person
    doesn’t follow wicked advice,
    doesn’t stand on the road of sinners,
    and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.
Instead of doing those things,
    these persons love the Lord’s Instruction,
    and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!
They are like a tree replanted by streams of water,
    which bears fruit at just the right time
    and whose leaves don’t fade.
        Whatever they do succeeds.
That’s not true for the wicked!
    They are like dust that the wind blows away.
And that’s why the wicked will have no standing in the court of justice—
    neither will sinners
    in the assembly of the righteous.
The Lord is intimately acquainted
    with the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked is destroyed.


Psalm 1  - NRSV

The Two Ways

Happy are those
    who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
    or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish.

I have no great insight to share today.  Just the feeling of calmness and peace at the beginning of what promises to be a hot, busy day.  

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