A happy family
1 If people respect the Lord
and they obey his commands,
God has blessed them!
2 You will eat the food that you have worked hard to grow.
You will have everything that you need.
You will be happy!
3 Your wife will be like a vine that grows in your home,
and it gives many grapes.
Your children will sit around your table,
like the branches of an olive tree that are around you.
128:3Both word pictures mean that you will have a happy family, with many children. An olive tree has many branches.
4 Yes, if a man respects the Lord,
that is how God blesses him.
5 The Lord rules from Zion,
and I pray that he will bless you.
128:5Solomon built God's house, the temple, on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. For many Christians, Zion is a picture of heaven, where God lives.
Then you will see that Jerusalem is a good place to live in
for as long as you live.
6 I pray that you will live to see your grandchildren.
May Israel have peace!
Psalm 129
A song to sing as we climb.
1 Since I was young, my enemies have often attacked me.
Israel's people now answer:
2 ‘They have often attacked me since I was young,
but they have not won against me.
3 They hit my back with whips.
They made long marks on it,
like farmers who are ploughing their fields.
4 But the Lord is righteous.
He has made me free from those cruel people.’
5 I pray that everyone who hates Zion's people will be ashamed.
Then they will have to turn around and go back.
6 May they be useless, like grass that grows on a roof.
It dies before it can grow tall!
7 A gardener cannot use it.
A farmer will not keep it.
129:7The grass quickly dies because there is no earth on a roof. Because of that, there will be no fruit. So the gardener and the farmer have nothing that they can use.
8 People that go past will not say to them,
‘We will ask the Lord to bless you!’
Nobody will say to those who hate Zion's people,
‘Receive our blessing in the name of the Lord!’