The Mighty One Calls

1A Psalm of Asaph. The God of gods, the Lord has spoken, and he has called the earth, from the rising of the sun even to its setting,

2from Zion, the brilliance of his beauty.

3God will arrive manifestly. Our God also will not keep silence. A fire will flare up in his sight, and a mighty tempest will surround him.

4He will call to heaven from above, and to the earth, to discern his people.

5Gather his holy ones to him, you who order his covenant above sacrifices.

6And the heavens will announce his justice. For God is the judge.

7Listen, my people, and I will speak. Listen, Israel, and I will testify for you. I am God, your God.

8I will not reprove you for your sacrifices. Moreover, your holocausts are ever in my sight.

9I will not accept calves from your house, nor he-goats from your flocks.

10For all the wild beasts of the forest are mine: the cattle on the hills and the oxen.

11I know all the flying things of the air, and the beauty of the field is with me.

12If I should be hungry, I would not tell you: for the whole world is mine, and all its plentitude.

13Shall I gnaw on the flesh of bulls? Or would I drink the blood of goats?

14Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High.

15And call upon me in the day of tribulation. I will rescue you, and you will honor me.

16But to the sinner, God has said: Why do you discourse on my justices, and take up my covenant through your mouth?

17Truly, you have hated discipline, and you have cast my sermons behind you.

18If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and you have placed your portion with adulterers.

19Your mouth has abounded with malice, and your tongue has concocted deceits.

20Sitting, you spoke against your brother, and you set up a scandal against your mother’s son.

21These things you have done, and I was silent. You thought, unjustly, that I ought to be like you. But I will reprove you, and I will set myself against your face.

22Understand these things, you who forget God; lest at any time, he might quickly take you away, and there would be no one to rescue you.

23The sacrifice of praise will honor me. And in that place is the journey by which I will reveal to him the salvation of God.