Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Psalm by David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

⁵ “Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days which you will not believe though it is told you. ⁶ For, behold,^[a] I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷ They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. ⁸ Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour. ⁹ All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand. ¹⁰ Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it. ¹¹ Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.”

¹² Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God,^[b] my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed them for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. ¹³ You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he, ¹⁴ and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things that have no ruler over them? ¹⁵ He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. ¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his life is luxurious and his food is good. ¹⁷ Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without mercy?

² Count it all joy, my brothers,^[a] when you fall into various temptations, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

⁵ But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. ⁷ For that man shouldn’t think that he will receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

⁹ Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position; ¹⁰ and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away. ¹¹ For the sun arises with the scorching wind and withers the grass; and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So the rich man will also fade away in his pursuits.