Psalm 128–130

A Pilgrim Song

^1–2128All you who fear God, how blessed you are!

how happily you walk on his smooth straight road!

You worked hard and deserve all you’ve got coming.

Enjoy the blessing! Revel in the goodness!

^3–4Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes,

your household lush as a vineyard,

The children around your table

as fresh and promising as young olive shoots.

Stand in awe of God’s Yes.

Oh, how he blesses the one who fears God!

^5–6Enjoy the good life in Jerusalem

every day of your life.

And enjoy your grandchildren.

Peace to Israel!

A Pilgrim Song

^1–4129“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;

Then God ripped the harnesses

of the evil plowmen to shreds.”

^5–8Oh, let all those who hate Zion

grovel in humiliation;

Let them be like grass in shallow ground

that withers before the harvest,

Before the farmhands can gather it in,

the harvesters get in the crop,

Before the neighbors have a chance to call out,

“Congratulations on your wonderful crop!

We bless you in God’s name!”

A Pilgrim Song

^1–2130Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life!

Master, hear my cry for help!

Listen hard! Open your ears!

Listen to my cries for mercy.

^3–4If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,

who would stand a chance?

As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,

and that’s why you’re worshiped.

^5–6I pray to God—my life a prayer—

and wait for what he’ll say and do.

My life’s on the line before God, my Lord,

waiting and watching till morning,

waiting and watching till morning.

^7–8O Israel, wait and watch for God—

with God’s arrival comes love,

with God’s arrival comes generous redemption.

No doubt about it—he’ll redeem Israel,

buy back Israel from captivity to sin.