Good Friday: Praying with Psalm 14

Here is a psalm for prayer as you move into Good Friday.

Norman Fischer's book of psalms, Opening to You, combines beautiful poetry with a gentle spirit which renders the prayers in striking images. His work is my go-to when I want to see the psalms differently and pray them honestly. I highly recommend Opening to You.


Psalm 14
Norman Fischer


The useless fool says in his heart
“God is nothing”
People are corrupt, do only harm
Not one does good unselfishly, not one

You gaze down from the highest
Upon humankind in the middle
To see if there is one person with eyes
One with understanding
One capable of seeing your seeing

But they are all gone bad
All turned sour and blind
There is none who knows good
Not one

Is there not even a speck of understanding
In all the world of blind heedlessness
Among those who eat up others as if they were bread
And do not even know their own hearts
Or a single true word?

But they become terrified even within their terror
When they see you burning in the circle of goodness
Shining out of the eyes of the lowly and the poor
Showing your holiness in their defeat
Your invincible power at the center of their weakness

O that someone might come out of Zion
To bring freedom to the strugglers!

When you capture the people again
The sojourners will be glad
And the strugglers will rejoice with strong singing


[Norman Fischer, “Psalm 14,” Opening to You (New York: Penguin Compass, 2002), p. 17.]