WHEN I STUMBLE OVER a powerful Bible passage, as I work my way through paraphrasing the Casual English Bible, I create a video reading of the passage.

For better, and sometimes…as today…for worse.

For better

Here are three examples of upbeat Bible videos I did earlier.

Genesis 1. Where life got it’s start

Psalm 23. Shepherd of life

Matthew 5. Sermon on a mountainside

For worse: nasty Psalm 58

Bible prayer for rotten leaders

Psalm 58 is doggone negative. And it sounds a little like some of the broadcast “news” channels today.

[Tip from former news journalist: Get your news from the free apps by the Associated Press and Reuters. They are objective, and without editorializing.]

Psalm 58 is so nasty that Catholics don’t pray it in their liturgy.

A Catholic colleague and advisor of mine, Bob Huber told me Catholics have excluded this psalm from their daily Liturgy of the Hours. Many Catholics pray all 150 psalms every month, excluding only the three nastiest and most negative psalms: 58, 83, and 109.

Psalm 58 so effectively captures the spirit of many voters in our country and in countries abroad, that I decided to create the video to help people see how they’re coming across.

It’s fine to complain and to vote our complaints. I do and I did.

But if we go as overboard and off the wall as the writer of Psalm 58, we should probably go home and get some sleep.

For those who say, “Yeah, but this is God’s Word,” I’d suggest there’s a message in the psalm that the writer may not have gotten until after he calmed down.

Casual English Bible
Bible Gateway