SECOND PART

Selected Psalms

Psalms are the book of hymns and prayers of the Bible. They are 150, many of them with identical themes and quite similar ‘sayings'. As a rule, praises to God or prayers translating requests to the Lord.

We selected only six, for our book. Because they were those which, for their beauty or for the essence of their content, touched the depth of our soul. Here or there, we did some cuts or alterations, in favor of simplicity or sonority.

Psalm 13

For how long, O Lord, will you forget me?

For how long will you hide your face?

For how long will I have to support this suffering?

For how long will my heart be filled with sadness?

For how long will my enemies prevail on me?

My God, look at me and answer my prayers.

Give me strength to struggle and not die.

So that my enemies will not say:

" We defeated him"

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd and I shall lack nothing.

He makes me rest at green pastures and takes me to calm waters.

Although I walk through a valley as dark as death, I shall fear nothing.

Because you are with me; you protect me and you direct me.

I know that your kindness and your love will be with me as long as I live.

And everyday of my life I shall live at your house.

Psalm 90

Lord, you have always been my refuge.

Before the mountains existed

and you started to create the world,

you were the eternal God, without beginning nor end.

You tell the creatures to be again what they were before;

And you turn them again into dust.

Before you, a thousand years are only one single day,

as the one of yesterday that has already gone;

they are like the night hour that passes fast.

You drag people as a river;

they don't last more than a dream.

They are like the herb that sprouts in the morning,

that grows and opens into a flower,

to dry and die at the end of the day.

Psalm 91

That who inhabits the Almighty house

and seeks shelter in His protecting shade,

may say to the Eternal God:

"You are my defender and protector.

You are my Master and I trust you ".

He shall rid you from hidden dangers and fatal illnesses.

He shall cover you with His wings and under them you shall be safe.

You won't be afraid of the night dangers

nor of assaults during the day.

You won't fear the plague that disperses in the darkness

nor the evils that kill at noon.

Although a thousand people are killed at your side

and ten thousand around you,

you won't suffer anything.

You took God as your protector

and the Almighty as your defender;

therefore, no disaster will hurt you

and nothing bad will get close to your house.

God will order His angels to take care of you

and to protect you in every moment of your life.

They will hold you with their hands

so that not even your feet get hurt.

And with them you shall squeeze lions and snakes,

ferocious lions and poisonous snakes.

Psalm 127

If God doesn't want to build the house,

it is useless the work of those that build it.

If the Lord doesn't keep His eyes on the house.

in vain watches the sentry...

Obs.: These verses of the psalm 127 have a special meaning for our generation. Because they were the last lines of a speech that President John Kennedy would deliver at a lunch encounter in Dallas, had he not been murdered a few hours before.

Psalm 139

Eternal God, you examine me and you know me.

You know everything that I do and,

from a distance, you know all my thoughts.

You created each part of my body;

you formed me in my mother's womb.

You saw me even before I was born.

The days that had been created for me,

were all written in your book,

when none of them still existed...

Chosen Proverbs

Proverbs are a book of practical wisdom. It teaches that the religion is linked to the common problems of life.

Here, we also selected those that we sensed as the most appropriate to the reality of our times:

It is better to be a common person and and work than to pretend to be rich and have hunger (Proverbs,12,9)

The fool thinks that he is always right, but the wise person accepts advises (Proverbs,12,15)

The careful person hides his wisdom, but the fool announces his own ignorance. (Proverbs,12,23)

Honesty is the road for dignity (Proverbs,12,28)

Who doesn't punish the son, doesn't love him. Who loves the son, will punish him while it is still time (Proverbs,13,24)

Everyday is difficult for the ones that are afflicted, but life is always pleasant for those who have cheerful hearts (Proverbs,15,15)

A person can make plans but it is God who gives the final word (Proverbs,16,1)

Who answers before hearing, shows that is foolish and passes shame (Proverbs,18,13)

Who drifts carefully has abundance, but who hurries ends up passing need (Proverbs,21,5)

Don't feel bad about correcting your child. Some slaps won't kill her. To tell the truth, they may be able to rid her from future misfortunes (Proverbs,23,13)

Hate is cruel and destructive, but envy is even worse. (Proverbs,27,4)

Sincere criticism is better than love without sincerity. (Proverbs,27,5)

Non Biblical Citations

They are not in the Bible, but are sentences of wisdom, said or written by people that exercise or have exercised the art of deep thought and reasoning.

" The perfect, integral man, is the one that, aware of his identification with God, doesn't forget about his own existential diversity" - extracted from the Bhagavad Gita, one of the books of the Vedas, the ‘Bible’ of Hinduism.

" If you want to feed somebody for one day, give him a fish. If you want to feed him for a lifetime, teach him how to fish " - oriental proverb of an unknown author.

"Violence is the best of arguments; it totally darkens intelligence" - Arthur Schopenhauer

" People without ambition and that don't take risks, are no good for anything." - Benjamin Franklin

"Forgive your enemies but don’t forget their names " - John F. Kennedy

" God is subtle, but he is not malicious " - Albert Einstein

" The greater is a man's knowledge, the more intelligent he is, the greater will be his suffering; the man that is endowed with genius suffers more than all the others" - Arthur Schopenhauer

" The one that combats monsters, should take care that, in the process, he does not become one of them " -Friedrich Nietzsche

"I have faith in the God that created man, but not in the God that the man created " - unknown author

" God doesn't play dice with the universe " - Albert Einstein

" God doesn't just play dice. Some times He flings them to places where they cannot be seen " - Stephen William Hawking

" Everything that exists in the universe is product of chance and need " - Democritus

"Does consciousness distinguish us from other animals and from machines - or not? Can consciousness be reduced scientifically to chemical processes and mechanics? If so, where are love, pain and dreams? " - Daniel Dennett

"Our loyalty is to the species and the planet. We speak on behalf of the Earth. To survive is an obligation that we have, not only to us, but also to that Cosmos, enormous and old, from which we all originate" - Carl Sagan

" Perhaps we, humans, are something more than simple neurons discharging. At least this is what we think ...while the neurons keep discharging... " Patricia Smith-Churchland

" If you speak to God, you are praying; if God speaks to you, you may be becoming schizophrenic" - Thomas Szasz

" We, humans, are the consequence of glorious accidents that happened during an unpredictable process unprovided of impulse for complexity, and not the result of evolutionary principles, anxious to produce a creature capable to understand the method by which he had to be necessarily built" - Stephen Gould

" The search of the truth will never be an easy task, but the attempt will always be meritorious " - Oliver Marti

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and is never simple " - Oscar Wilde

"If you can not change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails " - H. Jackson Brown

"Faith needs all the truth" -Teilhard of Chardin

"The truth is hard as the diamond and delicate as the flower of the peach tree"- Mahatma Gandhi

" The greatest of all ignorances is to reject a thing about which you don't know anything" - H. Jackson Brown

"All historical experience confirms this truth: man would not have reached the possible if, on repeated times, he had not tried the impossible" - Max Weber

"The good thing you practice somewhere, will be your lawyer everywhere " - Chico Xavier

"To have fear is the thing that I am most afraid of in this world " - Michel of Montaigne

"The wisdom in love doesn't consist in conquering several women each day, but in conquering the same woman every day" - unknown author

"If you believe that something belongs to you, let it go. If it returns it is because it was always yours. But if it doesn't return it is because it never really belonged to you" - Virosta

"Solitude is combated with a companion and not with children, who were born to fly" - Marta Suplicy

"All the happy families are similar to each other; the unhappy ones are unhappy, each in its own particular way" - Leon Tostoi

"You speak so loud that I can't listen to what you say" - unknown author

"To love is to accept that, between you and a fellow creature, there are many and precious differences that must be respected" - Anna Verônica Mautner

"To doubt everything is like believing in everything. They are equally dangerous positions, because both deprive us of reflecting " - Henri Poincaré

"The devil's smartest trick is to convince us that he doesn't exist" - Charles Baudelaire

"Everything should be done with moderation - including moderation itself" - Petronius

"Science without religion is unstable; religion without science is blind" - Albert Einstein

"It is useless, Khayyam, for you to grieve so much for your sins. After death there is only nothing or mercy" - Omar Khayyam's (Rubaiyat)

"Selfishness is not to live how we want, but to ask others to live like we want them to do"- Oscar Wilde

"Every man wants to live forever, but no man wants to age" - Jonatham Swift

Eclesiastes

The book of Eclesiastes registers the thoughts of the Wise, a man who meditated deeply about human life.

We selected the one part that is, certainly, the most beautiful and the most acquainted:

There is a time for everything

Everything in this world has its time; each thing has its occasion.

There is a time to be born and a time to die;

a time to plant and a time to pluck what was planted.

There is a time to get sick and a time to heal;

a time to build and a time to break down.

There is a time to be sad and a time to be happy;

a time to dance and a time to cry.

There is a time to spread stones and a time to gather them;

a time to hug and a time to stand back.

There is a time to find and a time to lose;

a time to waste and a time to save.

There is a time to tear and a time to repair;

a time to speak and a time to remain silent.

There is a time to love and a time to hate;

a time to make war and a time to make peace.