Serve the Lord with reverent fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Parallel translations
- WEB Serve Yahweh with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
- KJV Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
- BSB Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
- NKJV Serve the Lord with fear, And rejoice with trembling.
- NASB Serve the Lord with reverence And rejoice with trembling.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Rulers are called to serve the Lord with reverent fear and to rejoice with trembling. Worship rightly combines awe and joy.
Overview
Service to God is to be marked by holy fear, and even joy is to be tempered by trembling reverence before His majesty. This balance guards both against careless familiarity and against joyless dread. In Christ believers draw near with confidence, yet still worship 'with reverence and awe' (Hebrews 12:28).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Phil 2:12So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
- Heb 12:28–29Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let us have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,
- Heb 12:25See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,
- Ps 119:119–120You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross. Therefore I love your testimonies.
- Ps 89:7a very awesome God in the council of the holy ones, to be feared above all those who are around him?
- Heb 4:1–2Let us fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest.
- Ps 97:1Yahweh reigns! Let the earth rejoice! Let the multitude of islands be glad!
- Ps 95:1–8Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh. Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!
- Ps 99:1Yahweh reigns! Let the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned among the cherubim. Let the earth be moved.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 2:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.