The coming of Christ foretold

Hear how it was also foretold concerning those who proclaimed his teaching and announced his appearance. The prophet and king mentioned above spoke in this way through the prophetic Spirit: “Day pours forth a word to day, and night announces knowledge to night. There are no speeches or words whose voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the inhabited world. In the sun he placed his dwelling, and he, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, will rejoice like a giant to run his course.”

Besides these, we have thought it fitting and relevant to recall other words prophesied through David himself. From them you can learn how the prophetic Spirit urges human beings to live; how he foretold the conspiracy formed against Christ by Herod, king of the Jews, by the Jews themselves, and by Pilate, who was your governor among them, together with his soldiers; how Christ was going to be believed by people from every race; how God calls him his Son and promises to subject all his enemies to him; how the demons, as far as they are able, try to escape the authority both of God, the Father and Lord of all, and of Christ himself; and how God calls everyone to repentance before the day of judgment comes.

The words are these: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the corrupt; but his desire is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night. He shall be like a tree planted beside channels of water, which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not fall away; and everything he does shall prosper. Not so the ungodly, not so; rather, they are like chaff that the wind drives away from the face of the earth. Therefore the ungodly shall not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the council of the righteous, because the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

“Why did the nations rage, and the peoples devise new things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, saying, ‘Let us tear apart their bonds and throw their yoke away from us.’ The one who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and trouble them in his anger. But I was appointed king by him upon Zion, his holy mountain, proclaiming the command of the Lord. The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession. You shall shepherd them with a rod of iron; you shall break them like a potter’s vessels.’

“And now, kings, understand; be instructed, all you who judge the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice before him with trembling. Take hold of instruction, lest the Lord become angry and you perish from the righteous way when his anger is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who trust in him.”