Advent - Week 3 - Joy - Psalm 50 and Mark 1:1-8

PSALM 50

¹The mighty one, God the LORD,

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun to its setting.

²Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

God shines forth.

³Our God comes and does not keep silence,

before him is a devouring fire,

and a mighty tempest all around him.

⁴He calls to the heavens above

and to the earth, that he may judge his people:

⁵"Gather to me my faithful ones,

who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!"

⁶The heavens declare his righteousness,

for God himself is judge. Selah

⁷"Hear, O my people, and I will speak,

O Israel, I will testify against you.

I am God, your God.

⁸Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;

your burnt offerings are continually before me.

⁹I will not accept a bull from your house,

or goats from your folds.

¹⁰For every wild animal of the forest is mine,

the cattle on a thousand hills.

¹¹I know all the birds of the air,

and all that moves in the field is mine.

¹²"If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world and all that is in it is mine.

¹³Do I eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

¹⁴Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

and pay your vows to the Most High.

¹⁵Call on me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

¹⁶But to the wicked God says:

"What right have you to recite my statutes,

or take my covenant on your lips?

¹⁷For you hate discipline,

and you cast my words behind you.

¹⁸You make friends with a thief when you see one,

and you keep company with adulterers.

¹⁹"You give your mouth free rein for evil,

and your tongue frames deceit.

²⁰You sit and speak against your kin;

you slander your own mother's child.

²¹These things you have done and I have been silent;

you thought that I was one just like yourself.

But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.

²²"Mark this, then, you who forget God,

or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.

²³Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me;

to those who go the right way

I will show the salvation of God."

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MARK 1:1–8

¹The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

 

²As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, 
     "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, 
          who will prepare your way; 
³     the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 
          'Prepare the way of the Lord, 
          make his paths straight,'" 
⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."