371 Don't bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked. 2 In no time they'll shrivel like grass clippings and wilt like cut flowers in the sun. 3 Get insurance with God and do a good deed, settle down and stick to your last. 4 Keep company with God, get in on the best. 5 Open up before God, keep nothing back; he'll do whatever needs to be done: 6 He'll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.
7 Quiet down before God, be prayerful before him. Don't bother with those who climb the ladder, who elbow their way to the top. 8 Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes - it only makes things worse. 9 Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; God-investors will soon own the store. 10 Before you know it, the wicked will have had it; you'll stare at his once famous place and - nothing! 11 Down-to-earth people will move in and take over, relishing a huge bonanza. 12 Bad guys have it in for the good guys, obsessed with doing them in. 13 But God isn't losing any sleep; to him they're a joke with no punch line. 14 Bullies brandish their swords, pull back on their bows with a flourish. They're out to beat up on the harmless, or mug that nice man out walking his dog. 15 A banana peel lands them flat on their faces - slapstick figures in a moral circus. 16 Less is more and more is less. One righteous will outclass fifty wicked, 17 For the wicked are moral weaklings but the righteous are God-strong. 18 God keeps track of the decent folk; what they do won't soon be forgotten. 19 In hard times, they'll hold their heads high; when the shelves are bare, they'll be full. 20 God-despisers have had it; God's enemies are finished - Stripped bare like vineyards at harvest time, vanished like smoke in thin air.
21 Wicked borrows and never returns; Righteous gives and gives. 22 Generous gets it all in the end; Stingy is cut off at the pass. 23 Stalwart walks in step with God; his path blazed by God, he's happy. 24 If he stumbles, he's not down for long; God has a grip on his hand. 25 I once was young, now I'm a graybeard - not once have I seen an abandoned believer, or his kids out roaming the streets. 26 Every day he's out giving and lending, his children making him proud. 27 Turn your back on evil, work for the good and don't quit. 28 God loves this kind of thing, never turns away from his friends. Live this way and you've got it made, but bad eggs will be tossed out. 29 The good get planted on good land and put down healthy roots. 30 Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone, rolls virtue around on his tongue. 31 His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins; his feet are as sure as a cat's. 32 Wicked sets a watch for Righteous, he's out for the kill. 33 God, alert, is also on watch - Wicked won't hurt a hair of his head.
34 Wait passionately for God, don't leave the path. He'll give you your place in the sun while you watch the wicked lose it. 35 I saw Wicked bloated like a toad, croaking pretentious nonsense. 36 The next time I looked there was nothing - a punctured bladder, vapid and limp. 37 Keep your eye on the healthy soul, scrutinize the straight life; There's a future in strenuous wholeness. 38 But the willful will soon be discarded; insolent souls are on a dead-end street. 39 The spacious, free life is from God, it's also protected and safe. 40 God-strengthened, we're delivered from evil - when we run to him, he saves us.
381 Take a deep breath, God; calm down - don't be so hasty with your punishing rod. 2 Your sharp-pointed arrows of rebuke draw blood; my backside smarts from your caning. 3 I've lost twenty pounds in two months because of your accusation. My bones are brittle as dry sticks because of my sin. 4 I'm swamped by my bad behavior, collapsed under gunnysacks of guilt. 5 The cuts in my flesh stink and grow maggots because I've lived so badly. 6 And now I'm flat on my face feeling sorry for myself morning to night. 7 All my insides are on fire, my body is a wreck. 8 I'm on my last legs; I've had it - my life is a vomit of groans. 9 Lord, my longings are sitting in plain sight, my groans an old story to you. 10 My heart's about to break; I'm a burned-out case. Cataracts blind me to God and good; 11 old friends avoid me like the plague. My cousins never visit, my neighbors stab me in the back.
12 My competitors blacken my name, devoutly they pray for my ruin. 13 But I'm deaf and mute to it all, ears shut, mouth shut. 14 I don't hear a word they say, don't speak a word in response. 15 What I do, God, is wait for you, wait for my Lord, my God - you will answer! 16 I wait and pray so they won't laugh me off, won't smugly strut off when I stumble. 17 I'm on the edge of losing it - the pain in my gut keeps burning. 18 I'm ready to tell my story of failure, I'm no longer smug in my sin. 19 My enemies are alive and in action, a lynch mob after my neck. 20 I give out good and get back evil from God-haters who can't stand a God-lover. 21 Don't dump me, God; my God, don't stand me up. 22 Hurry and help me; I want some wide-open space in my life!
391 I'm determined to watch steps and tongue so they won't land me in trouble. I decided to hold my tongue as long as Wicked is in the room. 2 "Mum's the word," I said, and kept quiet. But the longer I kept silence The worse it got - 3 my insides got hotter and hotter. My thoughts boiled over; I spilled my guts. 4 "Tell me, what's going on, God? How long do I have to live? Give me the bad news! 5 You've kept me on pretty short rations; my life is string too short to be saved. 6 Oh! we're all puffs of air. Oh! we're all shadows in a campfire. Oh! we're just spit in the wind. We make our pile, and then we leave it.
7 "What am I doing in the meantime, Lord? Hoping, that's what I'm doing - hoping 8 You'll save me from a rebel life, save me from the contempt of dunces. 9 I'll say no more, I'll shut my mouth, since you, Lord, are behind all this. 10 But I can't take it much longer. When you put us through the fire 11 to purge us from our sin, our dearest idols go up in smoke. Are we also nothing but smoke? 12 "Ah, God, listen to my prayer, my cry - open your ears. Don't be callous; just look at these tears of mine. I'm a stranger here. I don't know my way - a migrant like my whole family. 13 Give me a break, cut me some slack before it's too late and I'm out of here."
261 Agrippa spoke directly to Paul: "Go ahead - tell us about yourself." 2 "I can't think of anyone, King Agrippa, before whom I'd rather be answering all these Jewish accusations than you, 3 knowing how well you are acquainted with Jewish ways and all our family quarrels. 4 "From the time of my youth, my life has been lived among my own people in Jerusalem. 5 Practically every Jew in town who watched me grow up - and if they were willing to stick their necks out they'd tell you in person - knows that I lived as a strict Pharisee, the most demanding branch of our religion. 6 It's because I believed it and took it seriously, 7 committed myself heart and soul to what God promised my ancestors - the identical hope, mind you, that the twelve tribes have lived for night and day all these centuries - it's because I have held on to this tested and tried hope that I'm being called on the carpet by the Jews. They should be the ones standing trial here, not me! 8 For the life of me, I can't see why it's a criminal offense to believe that God raises the dead. 9 "I admit that I didn't always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might. 10 Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw these believers - I had no idea they were God's people! - into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution. 11 I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.
12 "One day on my way to Damascus, armed as always with papers from the high priests authorizing my action, 13 right in the middle of the day a blaze of light, light outshining the sun, poured out of the sky on me and my companions. Oh, King, it was so bright! 14 We fell flat on our faces. Then I heard a voice in Hebrew: 'Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me? Why do you insist on going against the grain?' 15 "I said, 'Who are you, Master?' 16 But now, up on your feet - I have a job for you. I've handpicked you to be a servant and witness to what's happened today, and to what I am going to show you. 17 "'I'm sending you off 18 to open the eyes of the outsiders so they can see the difference between dark and light, and choose light, see the difference between Satan and God, and choose God. I'm sending you off to present my offer of sins forgiven, and a place in the family, inviting them into the company of those who begin real living by believing in me.'
19 "What could I do, King Agrippa? I couldn't just walk away from a vision like that! I became an obedient believer on the spot. 20 I started preaching this life-change - this radical turn to God and everything it meant in everyday life - right there in Damascus, went on to Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside, and from there to the whole world. 21 "It's because of this 'whole world' dimension that the Jews grabbed me in the Temple that day and tried to kill me. They want to keep God for themselves. 22 But God has stood by me, just as he promised, and I'm standing here saying what I've been saying to anyone, whether king or child, who will listen. And everything I'm saying is completely in line with what the prophets and Moses said would happen: 23 One, the Messiah must die; two, raised from the dead, he would be the first rays of God's daylight shining on people far and near, people both godless and God-fearing."
24 That was too much for Festus. He interrupted with a shout: "Paul, you're crazy! You've read too many books, spent too much time staring off into space! Get a grip on yourself, get back in the real world!" 25 But Paul stood his ground. "With all respect, Festus, Your Honor, I'm not crazy. I'm both accurate and sane in what I'm saying. 26 The King knows what I'm talking about. I'm sure that nothing of what I've said sounds crazy to him. He's known all about it for a long time. You must realize that this wasn't done behind the scenes. 27 You believe the prophets, don't you, King Agrippa? Don't answer that - I know you believe." 28 But Agrippa did answer: "Keep this up much longer and you'll make a Christian out of me!" 29 Paul, still in chains, said, "That's what I'm praying for, whether now or later, and not only you but everyone listening today, to become like me - except, of course, for this prison jewelry!" 30 The king and the governor, along with Bernice and their advisors, got up 31 and went into the next room to talk over what they had heard. They quickly agreed on Paul's innocence, saying, "There's nothing in this man deserving prison, let alone death." 32 Agrippa told Festus, "He could be set free right now if he hadn't requested the hearing before Caesar."
