- pi@RPi3B:~/rpi8th/rpi32_shat $ ./test 
- Exception: Error powering down the device.: : user:power-down 
- pi@RPi3B:~/rpi8th/rpi32_shat $  
-   
Seems I made a stupid mistake on one word by throwing exception on success, not the other way around. Then I copy pasted it to other words as well!  

Here is the corrected version:
: DEV_ID    0x5c ;
: WHO_AM_I  0x0f ;
: CTRL_REG1 0x20 ;
: CTRL_REG2 0x21 ;
: TEMP_OUT_L   0x2b ;
: TEMP_OUT_H   0x2c ;
var LPS25H
: init
  1 DEV_ID hw:i2c null? if
    drop
    DEV_ID "Cannot connect to the LPS25H on I2C address %02x" s:strfmt throw
  else
    WHO_AM_I true hw:i2c@reg null? not if
      0xbd n:= not if
        "who_am_i error" throw
      then
    else
      WHO_AM_I "error reading from %02x" s:strfmt throw
    then
  then
  LPS25H ! ;
: power-down
  LPS25H @ CTRL_REG1 0x00 true hw:i2c!reg nip not if
   "Error powering down the device" throw
  then ;
: set-mode
  LPS25H @ CTRL_REG1 0x84 true hw:i2c!reg nip not if
   "Error turning on the pressure sensor analog front end in single shot mode" throw
  then ;
: one-shot-measure
  LPS25H @ CTRL_REG2 0x01 true hw:i2c!reg nip not if
   "Error running one-shot measurement (temperature and pressure)" throw
  then ;
: wait-results
  repeat
    0.025 sleep
    LPS25H @ CTRL_REG2 true hw:i2c@reg nip null? if
      drop
      "Error reading measurement status" throw
    then
    0 n:= not if
      break
    then
  again ;
: get-temp  \  -- temp
  LPS25H @ TEMP_OUT_L true hw:i2c@reg nip null? if
    drop
    "Error reading low byte of the temperature" throw
  then
  LPS25H @ TEMP_OUT_H true hw:i2c@reg nip null? if
    drop
    "Error reading high byte of the temperature" throw
  then
  8 n:shl n:bor 480 n:/ 42.5 n:+ ;
: app:main
  init
  power-down
  set-mode
  one-shot-measure
  wait-results
  get-temp . cr
  power-down
  bye ;
John could you download fixed 
version and test it on real hardware? It should just output temperature value if it succeeds. If it fails, it's exception time...