Living Temple: My Poetic Reading of Psalms 94
See also my comments on Revelation 20 ->
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Psalms 94: Living Temple
A Poetic Reading by Max Carl Kirk
1 Before Israel’s God all people shall appear: each and all suspended within God’s awesome radiance.
2 The Judge of all the worlds now inhales. He will pass sentence upon the proud, to give them what they deserve.
3 How long, how long, oh LORD, shall our joyful lust go on destroying the earth?
4 The tongue rears up with words of conquest; the armies of iniquity march in parade.
5 They pulverize Your people, oh LORD, and exhaust the resources of Your inheritance.
6 The widow of Your Temple is taxed and her foster children are made to perish.
7 We ask, Will God grant us our freedom? Can we silence the Daughter of His Voice?
8 Stop and think, you day- dreamers! Foolish children, when will you learn your responsibility?
9 He formed the ear; will he not hear what you are saying about Him? He formed the eye, will you try to block out his sight like you block out the sun?
10 Should not the Teacher of nations correct them? The One who teaches Humanity knowledge?
11 It is Israel’s God who knows the source and outcome of every human thought. He alone knows how to repair them.
12 Blessings flow through the person that You instruct, Holy Blessed One of Israel, who you teach out of your Torah.
13 That You may guide them by the hand into the secret chamber of your Sabbath, until the earth becomes the grave for all their wicked days, and Your Sabbath becomes the womb of their eternal life.
14 The Holy Blessed One is the head of his people. He will not be cut off from them. He will protect his children’s home from thieves and robbers.
15 For the criminal shall be made a saint in the court of the Judge of Israel, and all who witness it shall be converted.
16 Who will wrestle for me against my evil inclination? Who will defend me against the condemnation of my sins?
17 Unless the hand of Israel’s God had plucked me from the wastelands of my mind, my whole soul would soon have been a silent wilderness.
18 I cry that my foot is slipping toward sin. You hold me as though I were righteous. You hold me up with mercy and make me upright.
19 Continually I must face my experiences with my own perceptions, and so I become troubled, but continually You remind me how to think about all things with You, so that I am calmed and comforted.
20 Inventors of the technique of rebellion desire to occupy Your Holy Premises. It is their instruction that the world seems forced to obey.
21 They conspire against your little talmudim. They now assassinate the character of all who cling to You, having already crushed the stones of Your Temple into dust.
22 But the God of Israel is the Living Temple for whom I wait! My God is the foundation stone of my being and my faith. He will raise up His Temple from the earth and bring it down from the heavens!
23 But so long as we hate His word, He leaves us to our own devices, to be consumed by the idols of our own hands. When we do not believe Him, He imprisons our minds within our own premises. If we hate those whom He loves how can we know Him?
copyright ©2008 Max Carl Kirk