Psalms

Introduction
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PSALM 95^*

A Call to Praise and Obedience

I

1Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;

cry out to the rock of our salvation.^a

2Let us come before him with a song of praise,

joyfully sing out our psalms.

3For the LORD is the great God,

the great king over all gods,^b

4Whose hand holds the depths of the earth;

who owns the tops of the mountains.

5The sea and dry land belong to God,

who made them, formed them by hand.^c

II

6Enter, let us bow down in worship;

let us kneel before the LORD who made us.

7For he is our God,

we are the people he shepherds,

the sheep in his hands.^d

III

Oh, that today you would hear his voice:^e

8Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah,

as on the day of Massah in the desert.^*

9There your ancestors tested me;

they tried me though they had seen my works.^f

10Forty years I loathed that generation;

I said: “This people’s heart goes astray;

they do not know my ways.”^g

11Therefore I swore in my anger:

“They shall never enter my rest.”^*

* [Psalm 95] Twice the Psalm calls the people to praise and worship God (Ps 95:1–2, 6), the king of all creatures (Ps 95:3–5) and shepherd of the flock (Ps 95:7a, 7b). The last strophe warns the people to be more faithful than were their ancestors in the journey to the promised land (Ps 95:7c–11). This invitation to praise God regularly opens the Church’s official prayer, the Liturgy of the Hours.

* [95:8] Meribah: lit., “contention”; the place where the Israelites quarreled with God. Massah: “testing,” the place where they put God to the trial, cf. Ex 17:7; Nm 20:13.

* [95:11] My rest: the promised land as in Dt 12:9. Heb 4 applies the verse to the eternal rest of heaven.

a. [95:1] Dt 32:15.

b. [95:3] Ps 47:2; 135:5.

c. [95:5] Ps 24:1–2.

d. [95:7–11] Ps 81:8; 106:32; Heb 3:7–11, 15; 4:3, 5, 7.

e. [95:7] Ps 23:1–3; 100:3; Mi 7:14.

f. [95:9] Nm 14:22; 20:2–13; Dt 6:16; 33:8.

g. [95:10] Ps 78:8; Nm 14:34; Dt 32:5.