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Each day’s selection for our Daily Bible Study this week is designed to pick out and emphasize one piece of the “whole armor of God” referenced in Ephesians 6:10-18.  Today’s lesson scripture is from the 25th Psalm, verses 1-5:

1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
2 O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me.
3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.  Psalms 25:1-5 (NRSV)

A continuation of the “lifting up” in the 24th Psalm, this is a prayer for deliverance, guidance and forgiveness.  Verse four (as well as vv.9-10, 12) continues Wisdom’s concerns with the right “path” or “way” (cf. Psalms 1).  The psalm is an acrostic – that is each line begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  The New Jerusalem Bible seeks to give a sense of this pattern in its translation:

1 Aleph  adoration I offer, Yahweh, to you, my God.
2 Bet but in my trust in you do not put me to shame, let not my enemies gloat over me.
3 Gimel calling to you, none shall ever be put to shame, but shame is theirs who groundlessly break faith.
4 Dalet direct me in your ways, Yahweh, and teach me your paths.
5 He  encourage me to walk in your truth and teach me since you are the God who saves me.
(Waw) for my hope is in you all day long— such is your generosity, Yahweh.   Psalms 25:1-5 (NJB)

Actually, vav (or waw, depending on who’s doing the translating) is missing, but the NJB seeks to correct the acrostic in translation – perhaps in the spirit of trying to capture the original – by splitting verse 5 into two parts.  Personally, I like the NRSV, though it is less “poetic” than the Jerusalem Bible.  In either translation (as well as in the Jewish Society’s Translation, the NIV, NASB, ESV, KJV, and the Message) the focus of verse 5 is to walk or be led in the way of “truth”.  “Truth” is what we are encouraged to put on as a “belt” in Ephesians 6:14.  So, what is this “truth” and how does it serve as part of our armor in the struggle against cosmic powers and spiritual forces of evil?  This is the question that we’ll ask in one form or another of each of the metaphorical armaments that we are to don the last week of this quarter’s lessons.