Praise for God's Mighty Deeds

66¹ Shout joyful praises to God, all the earth! ² Sing about the glory of his name! Tell the world how glorious he is. ³ Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds! Your enemies cringe before your mighty power. ⁴ Everything on earth will worship you; they will sing your praises, shouting your name in glorious songs." Interlude ⁵ Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles he performs for people! ⁶ He made a dry path through the Red Sea, and his people went across on foot. There we rejoiced in him. ⁷ For by his great power he rules forever. He watches every movement of the nations; let no rebel rise in defiance. Interlude

⁸ Let the whole world bless our God and loudly sing his praises. ⁹ Our lives are in his hands, and he keeps our feet from stumbling. ¹⁰ You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver. ¹¹ You captured us in your net and laid the burden of slavery on our backs. ¹² Then you put a leader over us. We went through fire and flood, but you brought us to a place of great abundance.

¹³ Now I come to your Temple with burnt offerings to fulfill the vows I made to you- ¹⁴ yes, the sacred vows that I made when I was in deep trouble. ¹⁵ That is why I am sacrificing burnt offerings to you- the best of my rams as a pleasing aroma, and a sacrifice of bulls and male goats. Interlude ¹⁶ Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me. ¹⁷ For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke. ¹⁸ If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. ¹⁹ But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer. ²⁰ Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me.

The Nations Exhorted to Praise God

67¹ May God be merciful and bless us. May his face smile with favor on us. Interlude ² May your ways be known throughout the earth, your saving power among people everywhere. ³ May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the nations praise you. ⁴ Let the whole world sing for joy, because you govern the nations with justice and guide the people of the whole world. Interlude ⁵ May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the nations praise you. ⁶ Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God, our God, will richly bless us. ⁷ Yes, God will bless us, and people all over the world will fear him.

An Analogy from Marriage

7¹ Now, dear brothers and sisters -you who are familiar with the law-don't you know that the law applies only while a person is living? ² For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. ³ So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. ⁴ So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. ⁵ When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. ⁶ But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

The Problem of Indwelling Sin

⁷ Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "You must not covet." ⁸ But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. ⁹ At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, ¹⁰ and I died. So I discovered that the law's commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. ¹¹ Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. ¹² But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good. ¹³ But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commands for its own evil purposes.

¹⁴ So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. ¹⁶ But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. ¹⁸ And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can't. ¹⁹ I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. ²⁰ But if I do what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. ²¹ I have discovered this principle of life-that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. ²² I love God's law with all my heart. ²³ But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. ²⁴ Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? ²⁵ Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.