Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” A poem by David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.

² There was a man in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats; and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail. This woman was intelligent and had a beautiful face; but the man was surly and evil in his doings. He was of the house of Caleb. ⁴ David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. ⁶ Tell him, ‘Long life to you! Peace be to you! Peace be to your house! Peace be to all that you have! ⁷ Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds have now been with us, and we didn’t harm them. Nothing was missing from them all the time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let the young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a good day. Please give whatever comes to your hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

⁹ When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal all those words in the name of David, and waited.

¹⁰ Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants who break away from their masters these days. ¹¹ Shall I then take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who I don’t know where they come from?”

¹² So David’s young men turned on their way and went back, and came and told him all these words.

¹³ David said to his men, “Every man put on his sword!”

Every man put on his sword. David also put on his sword. About four hundred men followed David, and two hundred stayed by the baggage.

¹⁴ But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master; and he insulted them. ¹⁵ But the men were very good to us, and we were not harmed, and we didn’t miss anything as long as we went with them, when we were in the fields. ¹⁶ They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. ¹⁷ Now therefore know and consider what you will do; for evil is determined against our master and against all his house, for he is such a worthless fellow that one can’t speak to him.”

¹⁸ Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five seahs^[a] of parched grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. ¹⁹ She said to her young men, “Go on before me. Behold, I am coming after you.” But she didn’t tell her husband, Nabal. ²⁰ As she rode on her donkey, and came down hidden by the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them.

²¹ Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have kept all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained to him. He has returned me evil for good. ²² God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if I leave of all that belongs to him by the morning light so much as one who urinates on a wall.”^[b]

6 Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? ² Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? ³ Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? ⁴ If then you have to judge things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge who are of no account in the assembly? ⁵ I say this to move you to shame. Isn’t there even one wise man among you who would be able to decide between his brothers? ⁶ But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers! ⁷ Therefore it is already altogether a defect in you that you have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸ No, but you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and that against your brothers.

⁹ Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom. ¹¹ Some of you were such, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.