Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

57 Unto the end, destroy not, for David, for an inscription of a title.

² If in very deed you speak justice: judge right things, ye sons of men.

³ For in your heart you work iniquity: your hands forge injustice in the earth.

⁴ The wicked are alienated from the womb; they have gone astray from the womb: they have spoken false things.

⁵ Their madness is according to the likeness of a serpent: like the deaf asp that stoppeth her ears:

⁶ Which will not hear the voice of the charmers; nor of the wizard that charmeth wisely.

⁷ God shall break in pieces their teeth in their mouth: the Lord shall break the grinders of the lions.

⁸ They shall come to nothing, like water running down; he hath bent his bow till they be weakened.

⁹ Like wax that melteth they shall be taken away: fire hath fallen on them, and they shall not see the sun.

¹⁰ Before your thorns could know the brier; he swalloweth them up, as alive, in his wrath.

¹¹ The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge: he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner.

¹² And man shall say: If indeed there be fruit to the just: there is indeed a God that judgeth them on the earth.

²³ And when Abigail saw David she made haste and lighted off the ass, and fell before David, on her face, and adored upon the ground.

²⁴ And she fell at his feet, and said: Upon me let this iniquity be, my lord: let thy handmaid speak, I beseech thee, in thy ears: and hear the words of thy servant.

²⁵ Let not my lord the king, I pray, regard this naughty man Nabal: for according to his name, he is a fool, and folly is with him: but I thy handmaid did not see thy servants, my lord, whom thou sentest.

²⁶ Now therefore, my lord, the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, who hath withholden thee from coming to blood, and hath saved thy hand to thee: and now let thy enemies be as Nabal, and all they that seek evil to my lord.

²⁷ Wherefore receive this blessing, which thy handmaid hath brought to thee, my lord: and give it to the young men that follow thee, my lord.

²⁸ Forgive the iniquity of thy handmaid: for the Lord will surely make for my lord a faithful house, because thou, my lord, fightest the battles of the Lord: let not evil therefore be found in thee all the days of thy life.

²⁹ For if a man at any time shall rise, and persecute thee, and seek thy life, the soul of my lord shall be kept, as in the bundle of the living, with the Lord thy God: but the souls of thy enemies shall be whirled, as with the violence and whirling of a sling.

³⁰ And when the Lord shall have done to thee, my lord, all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have made thee prince over Israel,

³¹ This shall not be an occasion of grief to thee, and a scruple of heart to my lord, that thou hast shed innocent blood, or hast revenged thyself: and when the Lord shall have done well by my lord, thou shalt remember thy handmaid.

³² And David said to Abigail: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy speech:

³³ And blessed be thou, who hast kept me to day, from coming to blood, and revenging me with my own hand.

³⁴ Otherwise as the Lord liveth the God of Israel, who hath withholden me from doing thee any evil: if thou hadst not quickly come to meet me, there had not been left to Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

³⁵ And David received at her hand all that she had brought him, and said to her: Go in peace into thy house, behold I have heard thy voice, and have honoured thy face.

⁷ Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth: patiently bearing till he receive the early and latter rain.

⁸ Be you therefore also patient, and strengthen your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

⁹ Grudge not, brethren, one against another, that you may not be judged. Behold the judge standeth before the door.

¹⁰ Take, my brethren, for an example of suffering evil, of labour and patience, the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord.

¹¹ Behold, we account them blessed who have endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is merciful and compassionate.

¹² But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech be, yea, yea: no, no: that you fall not under judgment.