Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer in Troubled Times

For the director of music. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” A miktam of David when he escaped from Saul in the cave.

² A man in Maon who had land at Carmel was very rich. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was cutting the wool off his sheep at Carmel. ³ His name was Nabal, and he was a descendant of Caleb. His wife was named Abigail. She was wise and beautiful, but Nabal was cruel and mean.

⁴ While David was in the desert, he heard that Nabal was cutting the wool from his sheep. ⁵ So he sent ten young men and told them, “Go to Nabal at Carmel, and greet him for me. ⁶ Say to Nabal, ‘May you and your family and all who belong to you have good health! ⁷ I have heard that you are cutting the wool from your sheep. When your shepherds were with us, we did not harm them. All the time your shepherds were at Carmel, we stole nothing from them. ⁸ Ask your servants, and they will tell you. We come at a happy time, so be kind to my young men. Please give anything you can find for them and for your son David.’”

⁹ When David’s men arrived, they gave the message to Nabal, but Nabal insulted them. ¹⁰ He answered them, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many slaves are running away from their masters today! ¹¹ I have bread and water, and I have meat that I killed for my servants who cut the wool. But I won’t give it to men I don’t know.”

¹² David’s men went back and told him all Nabal had said. ¹³ Then David said to them, “Put on your swords!” So they put on their swords, and David put on his also. About four hundred men went with David, but two hundred men stayed with the supplies.

¹⁴ One of Nabal’s servants said to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers from the desert to greet our master, but Nabal insulted them. ¹⁵ These men were very good to us. They did not harm us. They stole nothing from us during all the time we were out in the field with them. ¹⁶ Night and day they protected us. They were like a wall around us while we were with them caring for the sheep. ¹⁷ Now think about it, and decide what you can do. Terrible trouble is coming to our master and all his family. Nabal is such a wicked man that no one can even talk to him.”

¹⁸ Abigail hurried. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two leather bags full of wine, five cooked sheep, a bushel of cooked grain, a hundred cakes of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs and put all these on donkeys. ¹⁹ Then she told her servants, “Go on. I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband.

²⁰ Abigail rode her donkey and came down toward the mountain hideout. There she met David and his men coming down toward her.

²¹ David had just said, “It’s been useless! I watched over Nabal’s property in the desert. I made sure none of his sheep was missing. I did good to him, but he has paid me back with evil. ²² May God punish my enemies even more. I will not leave one of Nabal’s men alive until morning.”

Judging Problems Among Christians

6 When you have something against another Christian, how can you bring yourself to go before judges who are not right with God? Why do you not let God’s people decide who is right? ² Surely you know that God’s people will judge the world. So if you are to judge the world, are you not able to judge small cases as well? ³ You know that in the future we will judge angels, so surely we can judge the ordinary things of this life. ⁴ If you have ordinary cases that must be judged, are you going to appoint people as judges who mean nothing to the church? ⁵ I say this to shame you. Surely there is someone among you wise enough to judge a complaint between believers. ⁶ But now one believer goes to court against another believer—and you do this in front of unbelievers!

⁷ The fact that you have lawsuits against each other shows that you are already defeated. Why not let yourselves be wronged? Why not let yourselves be cheated? ⁸ But you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do this to other believers!

⁹ - ¹⁰ Surely you know that the people who do wrong will not inherit God’s kingdom. Do not be fooled. Those who sin sexually, worship idols, take part in adultery, those who are male prostitutes, or men who have sexual relations with other men, those who steal, are greedy, get drunk, lie about others, or rob—these people will not inherit God’s kingdom. ¹¹ In the past, some of you were like that, but you were washed clean. You were made holy, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.