The Righteous and the Sinner

Psalm 3

1 Why are you sleeping, my soul, and not blessing the Lord? Sing a new song to God who is worthy to be praised.⁠ 2 Sing and stay awake to watch for His awakening, for a psalm (sung) to God from a joyful heart is good.

3 The righteous remember the Lord at all times, with thanksgiving and by declaring that the Lord’s judgments are righteous. 4 The righteous person does not despise the Lord’s discipline; His desire is always in the Lord’s presence.

5 The righteous person stumbles and acknowledges that the Lord is righteous: He falls and watches for what God will do to him; He searches for where his rescue will come from. 6 The firm resolve of the righteous is from God their deliverer; Sin does not pile up in the righteous person’s house. 7 The righteous person continually searches his house, to remove completely (all) wrongdoing (done) by him unintentionally.⁠ 8 He makes atonement for (sins of) ignorance by fasting and humbling himself, and the Lord counts every faithful man and his household as free from guilt.⁠

9 The sinner stumbles and curses his life, the day he was born, and his mother's labor pains. 10 He adds sin to sin while he lives (?); He falls, his fall is truly terrible, and he never rises again. 11 The destruction of the sinner is forever, and he will not be remembered when God attends to the righteous person.

12 This is the fate of sinners forever. But those who fear the Lord shall rise to eternal life,⁠ And their life (shall be) in the light of the Lord, and will never end.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalms of Solomon 3:8 and Acts 11:14

Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry · New Testament

Summary

Acts 11 describes salvation for an entire household using language that resembles the earlier Psalms of Solomon where cleansing and atonement extends to both a devout person and their home.

Passages

Psalms of Solomon 3:8

Pseudepigrapha, Wisdom and Poetry

6 The firm resolve of the righteous is from God their deliverer; Sin does not pile up in the righteous person’s house. 7 The righteous person continually searches his house, to remove completely (all) wrongdoing (done) by him unintentionally. 8 He makes atonement for (sins of) ignorance by fasting and humbling himself, and the Lord counts every faithful man and his household as free from guilt. 9 The sinner stumbles and curses his life, the day he was born, and his mother's labor pains. 10 He adds sin to sin while he lives (?); He falls, his fall is truly terrible, and he never rises again.

65–30 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Psalms of Solomon

Acts 11:14

New Testament

12 The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He informed us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and summon Simon, who is called Peter, 14 who will speak a message to you by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ 15 Then as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as he did on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, as he used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Acts

References

"... 'Washing' constituted one of several images for conversion in early Christianity (see 1 Corinthians 6:11, using the same term; Titus 3:5; compare with Ephesians 5:26; 2 Peter 2:22). This image probably either reflected the experience of baptism or a common earlier biblical foundation that affected both. Various earlier biblical texts refer to washing away sins; ritual texts include literal washings (Leviticus 14:19, 31; 16:30; Numbers 8:21), but other texts probably apply the image figuratively (Joshua 22:17; Psalms 19:12 [18:13–14 in the Septuagint]; 51:2 [50:4, 9 in the Septuagint]; Proverbs 20:9; Jeremiah 2:22; 33:8 [40:8 in the Septuagint]; Ezekiel 36:33; 37:23; 43:22) ... compare also Sirach 23:10; 34:4; 38:19; perhaps Psalms of Solomon 3:8; 9:6 ..."

Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Volume 3 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 1342.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

The Righteous and the Sinner

Psalms of Solomon18 psalms

Compare Psalms of Solomon 3:8 and Acts 11:14

Summary

Passages

Psalms of Solomon 3:8

Acts 11:14

References

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