Psalm 93

The Majesty of God’s Rule

Psalm 96

Praise to God Who Comes in Judgment

The Sabbatical Year

25 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a Sabbath for the Lord.^{(A) 3} Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in their yield, ⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ⁵ You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. ⁶ You may eat what the land yields during its Sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you,^{(B) 7} for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food.

The Year of Jubilee

⁸ “You shall count off seven weeks^[a] of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the Day of Atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land.^{(C) 10} And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.^{(D) 11} That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall not sow or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines. ¹² For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

¹³ “In this year of Jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property.^{(E) 14} When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not cheat one another.^{(F) 15} When you buy from your neighbor, you shall pay only for the number of years until the Jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop years.^{(G) 16} If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price, for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. ¹⁷ You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.^(H)

Faith and Wisdom

² My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy,^{(A) 3} because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

⁵ If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.^{(B) 6} But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.^{(C) 7,8} For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

¹⁶ Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.^{[a](A) 18} In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave birth to us by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.^(B)

The Parable of the Rich Fool

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” ¹⁴ But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”^{(A) 15} And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”^{(B) 16} Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷ And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ ¹⁸ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’^{(C) 20} But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’^{(D) 21} So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”^(E)