Bible Browser

Psalm 144

1  Blessed be the Lord my rock, ♦︎
   who teaches my hands for war and my fingers for battle;
2  My steadfast help and my fortress,
      my stronghold and my deliverer,
      my shield in whom I trust, ♦︎
   who subdues the peoples under me.
3  O Lord, what are mortals that you should consider them; ♦︎
   mere human beings, that you should take thought for them?
4  They are like a breath of wind; ♦︎
   their days pass away like a shadow.
5  Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down; ♦︎
   touch the mountains and they shall smoke.
6  Cast down your lightnings and scatter them; ♦︎
   shoot out your arrows and let thunder roar.
7  Reach down your hand from on high; ♦︎
   deliver me and take me out of the great waters,
      from the hand of foreign enemies,
8  Whose mouth speaks wickedness ♦︎
   and their right hand is the hand of falsehood.
9  O God, I will sing to you a new song; ♦︎
   I will play to you on a ten-stringed harp,
10  You that give salvation to kings ♦︎
   and have delivered David your servant.
11  Save me from the peril of the sword ♦︎
   and deliver me from the hand of foreign enemies,
12  Whose mouth speaks wickedness ♦︎
   and whose right hand is the hand of falsehood;
13  So that our sons in their youth
      may be like well-nurtured plants, ♦︎
   and our daughters like pillars
      carved for the corners of the temple;
14  Our barns be filled with all manner of store; ♦︎
   our flocks bearing thousands,
      and ten thousands in our fields;
15  Our cattle be heavy with young: ♦︎
   may there be no miscarriage or untimely birth,
      no cry of distress in our streets.
16  Happy are the people whose blessing this is. ♦︎
   Happy are the people who have the Lord for their God.

The Futility of Self-Indulgence

2I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself.’ But again, this also was vanity. ²I said of laughter, ‘It is mad’, and of pleasure, ‘What use is it?’ ³I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, until I might see what was good for mortals to do under heaven during the few days of their life. ⁴I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; ⁵I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. ⁷I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house; I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. ⁸I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and delights of the flesh, and many concubines.^*

9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. ¹⁰Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. ¹¹Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind,^* and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Wisdom and Joy Given to One Who Pleases God

12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can the one do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. ¹³Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.
¹⁴ The wise have eyes in their head,
   but fools walk in darkness.

Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them. ¹⁵Then I said to myself, ‘What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?’ And I said to myself that this also is vanity. ¹⁶For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How can the wise die just like fools? ¹⁷So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.^*

18 I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me ¹⁹—and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labours under the sun, ²¹because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²²What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? ²³For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

24 There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; ²⁵for apart from him^* who can eat or who can have enjoyment? ²⁶For to the one who pleases him God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy; but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.^*

Persecution of the Jews

20 After subduing Egypt, Antiochus returned in the one hundred and forty-third year.^* He went up against Israel and came to Jerusalem with a strong force. ²¹He arrogantly entered the sanctuary and took the golden altar, the lampstand for the light, and all its utensils. ²²He took also the table for the bread of the Presence, the cups for drink-offerings, the bowls, the golden censers, the curtain, the crowns, and the gold decoration on the front of the temple; he stripped it all off. ²³He took the silver and the gold, and the costly vessels; he took also the hidden treasures that he found. ²⁴Taking them all, he went into his own land.
He shed much blood,
   and spoke with great arrogance.
²⁵ Israel mourned deeply in every community,
²⁶   rulers and elders groaned,
young women and young men became faint,
   the beauty of the women faded.
²⁷ Every bridegroom took up the lament;
   she who sat in the bridal chamber was mourning.
²⁸ Even the land trembled for its inhabitants,
   and all the house of Jacob was clothed with shame.

The Occupation of Jerusalem

29 Two years later the king sent to the cities of Judah a chief collector of tribute, and he came to Jerusalem with a large force. ³⁰Deceitfully he spoke peaceable words to them, and they believed him; but he suddenly fell upon the city, dealt it a severe blow, and destroyed many people of Israel. ³¹He plundered the city, burned it with fire, and tore down its houses and its surrounding walls. ³²They took captive the women and children, and seized the livestock. ³³Then they fortified the city of David with a great strong wall and strong towers, and it became their citadel. ³⁴They stationed there a sinful people, men who were renegades. These strengthened their position; ³⁵they stored up arms and food, and collecting the spoils of Jerusalem they stored them there, and became a great menace,
³⁶ for the citadel^* became an ambush against the sanctuary,
   an evil adversary of Israel at all times.
³⁷ On every side of the sanctuary they shed innocent blood;
   they even defiled the sanctuary.
³⁸ Because of them the residents of Jerusalem fled;
   she became a dwelling of strangers;
she became strange to her offspring,
   and her children forsook her.
³⁹ Her sanctuary became desolate like a desert;
   her feasts were turned into mourning,
her sabbaths into a reproach,
   her honour into contempt.
⁴⁰ Her dishonour now grew as great as her glory;
   her exaltation was turned into mourning.

18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days; ¹⁹but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. ²⁰In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! ²¹Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, ²²and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; ²³they only heard it said, ‘The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.’ ²⁴And they glorified God because of me.

Paul and the Other Apostles

2Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. ²I went up in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain. ³But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. ⁴But because of false believers^* secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us— ⁵we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you. ⁶And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me. ⁷On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised ⁸(for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), ⁹and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was^* eager to do.