Psalm 130:1The MessageHelp, God—I’ve hit rock bottom! Master, hear my cry for help! Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy. See the chapter |
I look to you, heaven-dwelling God, look up to you for help. Like servants, alert to their master’s commands, like a maiden attending her lady, We’re watching and waiting, holding our breath, awaiting your word of mercy. Mercy, God, mercy! We’ve been kicked around long enough, Kicked in the teeth by complacent rich men, kicked when we’re down by arrogant brutes.
Those who trust in God are like Zion Mountain: Nothing can move it, a rock-solid mountain you can always depend on. Mountains encircle Jerusalem, and God encircles his people— always has and always will. The fist of the wicked will never violate What is due the righteous, provoking wrongful violence. Be good to your good people, God, to those whose hearts are right! God will round up the backsliders, corral them with the incorrigibles. Peace over Israel!
“They’ve kicked me around ever since I was young” —this is how Israel tells it— “They’ve kicked me around ever since I was young, but they never could keep me down. Their plowmen plowed long furrows up and down my back; But God wouldn’t put up with it, he sticks with us. Then God ripped the harnesses of the evil plowmen to shreds.”
While he lived on earth, anticipating death, Jesus cried out in pain and wept in sorrow as he offered up priestly prayers to God. Because he honored God, God answered him. Though he was God’s Son, he learned trusting-obedience by what he suffered, just as we do. Then, having arrived at the full stature of his maturity and having been announced by God as high priest in the order of Melchizedek, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who believingly obey him.