Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
52 Why do you boast of your wickedness, O man of power? The lovingkindness of God endures daily.
2 Your tongue imagines mischief, like a sharp razor that cuts deceitfully.
3 You love evil more than good, lies more than to speak the truth. Selah.
4 You love all words that may destroy. O deceitful tongue!
5 So shall God destroy you forever. He shall take you and pluck you out of your tabernacle, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah.
6 Also, the righteous shall see it, and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying,
7 “Behold the man who did not take God for His strength but trusted in the multitude of his riches and put his strength in his malice.”
8 But I shall be like a green olive tree in the House of God. I trusted in the mercy of God forever and ever.
9 I will always praise You because You have done this. And I will hope in Your Name because it is good before Your saints. To him who excels on Mahalath: A Psalm of David to give instruction
31 And in the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the Word of the LORD came to me, saying:
2 “Son of man, speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to his multitude, ‘Whom are you like in your greatness?
3 ‘Behold, Assyria —a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches and with thick shadowing boughs, and shot up very high, and his top among the thick boughs —
4 ‘the waters nourished him, and the deep exalted him on high, with her rivers running all through his plants. And she sent out her little rivers to all the trees of the field.
5 ‘Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied. And his branches were long, because of the multitude of the waters which were sent out.
6 ‘All the birds of the heavens made their nests in his boughs. And all the beasts of the field brought forth their young under his branches. And under his shadow dwelt all mighty nations.
7 ‘Thus he was fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches. For his root was near great waters.
8 ‘The cedars in the Garden of God could not hide him. No fir tree was like his branches. And the chestnut trees were not like his boughs. No tree in the Garden of God was like him in his beauty.
9 ‘I made him fair by the multitude of his branches, so that all the trees of Eden that were in the Garden of God envied him.
10 ‘Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: “Because he is lifted up on high, and has shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height,
11 “I have therefore delivered him into the hands of the mightiest among the heathen. He shall handle him. I have cast him away for his wickedness.
12 “And the strangers have destroyed him, the ruthless nations; and they have left him upon the mountains; and in all the valleys his branches have fallen; and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land. And all the people of the Earth have departed from his shadow and have forsaken him.
11 You see how large the letters are which I have written to you with my own hand.
12 As many as desire to have a fair appearance in the flesh, they urge you to be circumcised, only because they would not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
13 For they themselves who are circumcised do not keep the Law, but desire to have you circumcised, so that they might boast in your flesh.
14 But may it never be that I should boast in anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; whereby the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!
15 For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creature.
16 And as many as walk according to this rule, peace shall be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.
17 From henceforth let no one give me trouble. For I bear on my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
18 Brothers, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
(to the Galatians; written from Rome.)
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