Psalm 50: God Calls the Earth to Judgment
God summons heaven and earth as witnesses to judge His covenant people.
Psalm 50 opens with God speaking and calling the earth 'from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof' to gather His saints for judgment. He declares that every beast of the forest and the cattle on a thousand hills already belong to Him, so animal sacrifice alone cannot satisfy Him, unlike the wealth warning of Psalms 49.
The Mighty One, God, Jehovah, has spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone forth.
Our God comes, and does not keep silence. A fire devours before him, and it is very tempestuous round about him.
He calls to the heavens above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
Gather my sanctified together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself. Selah.
Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify to thee, I am God, even thy God.
I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, and thy burnt offerings being continually before me.
I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof.
Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay thy vows to the Most High.
And call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee, and thou shall glorify me.
But to the wicked man God says, What have thou to do to declare my statutes, and that thou have taken my covenant in thy mouth,
since thou hate instruction, and cast my words behind thee?
When thou saw a thief, thou consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers.
Thou give thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frames deceit.
Thou sit and speak against thy brother; thou slander thine own mother's son.
These things thou have done, and I kept silence. Thou thought that I was altogether such a one as thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.
Now consider this, ye who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver:
Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me. And to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God.