The Church Year and the Lectionary Commentary – The 7th Sunday of Easter (Day 2)

Psalm1

1 The truly happy person
    doesn’t follow wicked advice,
    doesn’t stand on the road of sinners,
    and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.
² Instead of doing those things,
    these persons love the Lord’s Instruction,
    and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!
³ They are like a tree replanted by streams of water,
    which bears fruit at just the right time
    and whose leaves don’t fade.
        Whatever they do succeeds.

⁴ That’s not true for the wicked!
    They are like dust that the wind blows away.
⁵ And that’s why the wicked will have no standing in the court of justice—
    neither will sinners
    in the assembly of the righteous.
⁶ The Lord is intimately acquainted
    with the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked is destroyed.

The Message brings this psalm to life with its fresh imagery:

How well God must like you— you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road,
   you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.

 ^2-3 Instead you thrill to God's Word,
      you chew on Scripture day and night.
   You're a tree replanted in Eden,
      bearing fresh fruit every month,
   Never dropping a leaf,
      always in blossom.

 ^4-5 You're not at all like the wicked,
      who are mere windblown dust—
   Without defense in court,
      unfit company for innocent people.

 ⁶ God charts the road you take.
   The road they take is Skid Row.