Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Prayer for Help

57 Show me loving-kindness, O God, show me loving-kindness. For my soul goes to You to be safe. And I will be safe in the shadow of Your wings until the trouble has passed. ² I will cry to God Most High, to God Who finishes all things for me. ³ He will send from heaven and save me. He will put to shame him who is breaking me under his feet. God will send His loving-kindness and His truth.

⁴ My soul is among lions. I must lie among the sons of men who breathe fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and whose tongues are a sharp sword. ⁵ Be lifted up above the heavens, O God. Let Your shining-greatness be above all the earth. ⁶ They have set a net for my steps. My soul is brought down. They dug a deep hole in front of me. But they themselves have fallen into it.

⁷ My heart will not be moved, O God. My heart cannot be moved. I will sing, yes, I will sing praises! ⁸ Awake, my shining-greatness. Awake, harps. I will awake early in the morning. ⁹ O Lord, I will give thanks to You among the people. I will sing praises to You among the nations. ¹⁰ For Your loving-kindness is great to the heavens, and Your truth to the clouds. ¹¹ Be lifted up above the heavens, O God. Let Your shining-greatness be above all the earth.

² There was a man in Maon who worked in Carmel. The man was very rich. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. He was cutting the wool from his sheep in Carmel. ³ The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. The woman was of good understanding and beautiful. But the man was bad and sinful in his ways. He was a Calebite. ⁴ David heard in the desert that Nabal was cutting the wool from his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men, saying to them, “Go up to Carmel. Visit Nabal and greet him for me. ⁶ Say to him, ‘Have a long life. Peace be to you. Peace be to your family. And peace be to all that you have. ⁷ I have heard that you have men who cut the wool from your sheep. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we have not done them any wrong. And they have not missed anything all the time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men and they will tell you. So let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a special day. I ask you to give whatever you have ready to your servants and to your son David.’”

⁹ When David’s young men came, they said all this to Nabal in David’s name. Then they waited. ¹⁰ But Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are leaving their owners. ¹¹ Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my wool cutters, and give it to men when I do not know where they came from?” ¹² So David’s young men turned away and returned to David and told him all this. ¹³ David said to his men, “Every man put on his sword!” So every man put on his sword, and David put on his sword also. About 400 men went up behind David, while 200 stayed with their things.

¹⁴ But one of the young men told Nabal’s wife Abigail, “See, David sent men from the desert to greet our owner, and he spoke against them. ¹⁵ But David’s men were very good to us. They did not do anything wrong to us. And we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. ¹⁶ They were a wall to us night and day, all the time we were with them taking care of the sheep. ¹⁷ So know this and think about what you should do. For bad plans have been made against our owner and all his family. He is such a sinful man that no one can speak to him.”

¹⁸ In a hurry Abigail took 200 loaves of bread, two bottles of wine, five sheep ready to eat, five baskets of dry grain, 100 vines of dried grapes and 200 loaves of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹ She said to her young men, “Go on before me. See, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. ²⁰ As she went on her donkey and came down hidden by the mountain, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them. ²¹ Now David had said, “It was for nothing that I have watched over all this man has in the desert, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him. He has paid me bad for good. ²² May God do the same to David and more, if I leave until morning as much as one male alive of all who belong to him.”

Going to Court Against Christians

6 Why do you go to court when you have something against another Christian? You are asking people who are not Christians to judge who is guilty. You should go to those who belong to Christ and ask them. ² Did you not know that those who belong to Christ will someday judge this world? If you judge the people of the world as guilty, are you not able to do this in small things? ³ Did you not know that we are to judge angels? So you should be able to take care of your problem here in this world without any trouble.

⁴ When you have things to decide about this life, why do you go to men in courts who are not even Christians? ⁵ You should be ashamed! Is it true that there is not one person wise enough in your church to decide who is right when people argue? ⁶ Instead, one Christian takes another Christian to court. And that court is made up of people who are not Christians! ⁷ This shows you are wrong when you have to go to court against each other. Would it not be better to let someone do something against you that is wrong? Would it not be better to let them rob you? ⁸ Instead, you rob and do wrong to other Christians.

The Body Is to Be Holy

⁹ Do you not know that sinful men will have no place in the holy nation of God? Do not be fooled. A person who does sex sins, or who worships false gods, or who is not faithful in marriage, or men who act like women, or people who do sex sins with their own sex, will have no place in the holy nation of God. ¹⁰ Also those who steal, or those who always want to get more of everything, or who get drunk, or who say bad things about others, or take things that are not theirs, will have no place in the holy nation of God. ¹¹ Some of you were like that. But now your sins are washed away. You were set apart for God-like living to do His work. You were made right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of our God.