◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) / Psalm 131 (I rest like a weaned child on God); Jeremiah 28:10-17 (Hananiah breaks Jeremiah’s yoke); Romans 3:1-8 (The faithfulness of God) (New Catholic Bible)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 131

Psalm 131^[a]

Childlike Trust in God

¹A song of ascents. Of David.

O Lord, my heart^[b] is not proud,
    nor are my eyes raised too high.
I do not concern myself with great affairs
    or with things too sublime for me.
²Rather, I have stilled and calmed my soul,^[c]
    hushed it like a weaned child.
Like a weaned child held in its mother’s arms,
    so is my soul within me.
³O Israel, put your hope in the Lord
    both now and forevermore.^[d]

Footnotes

Psalm 131:1 Certainly the Prophets dared to state that God was like a mother for his people (see Isa 66:12f; Hos 11:4). But here is a man who has not fled from the experience of life; he lays bare the depth of his heart: the soul of a child before God. This psalm strikes us with great freshness and simplicity, and it is the most moving and evangelical of the psalms. A believer of the Old Testament has discovered the voice of spiritual childhood: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3).
We can pray this psalm with the awareness that after practicing abandonment to God’s hands, Jesus offers it as an ideal for us also, for like him we are children of the heavenly Father: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). We must flee from all desire to go beyond God and his help (see Mt 23:11; Jas 4:6f; 1 Pet 5:5f). The Father alone can make our labors fruitful through Christ (see Jn 15:1-17; 1 Cor 3:5-8); without Christ we can do nothing (see Jn 15:5).
Psalm 131:1 Heart: see note on Ps 4:8. The psalmist has completely submitted himself to God in all humility (see Mic 6:8). He is not like the proud who rely only on themselves (see note on Ps 31:24). He knows that true holiness begins in a heart bereft of pride (see Prov 18:12), with eyes that do not envy (see Pss 18:28; 101:5; Prov 16:5), and a manner of life that is not presumptuous, not preoccupied with great things (see Jer 45:5) and achievements that are too sublime, i.e., too difficult or arduous, beyond one’s powers (see Deut 17:8; 30:11).
Psalm 131:2 Soul: see note on Ps 6:4. The psalmist keeps a guard over his desires. He is like a weaned child, who no longer frets for what it used to find indispensable and walks trustingly by its mother or lies peacefully in its mother’s arms.
Psalm 131:3 Likewise all Israel, all God’s people, must hope only in the Lord. Weaned away from insubstantial ambitions, we must hanker for the sole solid fare: “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to accomplish his work” (Jn 4:34).

Jeremiah 28:10-17

¹⁰Then the prophet Hananiah took the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah and broke it, ¹¹as he announced in the presence of all the people, “Thus says the Lord: This is how I will break the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon from the neck of the nations within two years.” On hearing this, the prophet Jeremiah departed.

¹²A short time after the prophet Hananiah had removed the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah and broken it, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, ¹³“Go to Hananiah and tell him this: Thus says the Lord: You have broken a wooden yoke, only to have it replaced with a yoke of iron. ¹⁴For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I will place a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations and force them to serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. They will become his slaves. I have even given him the wild animals.”

¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah further said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen carefully, Hananiah! The Lord has not sent you, and you have led this people to trust in false prophecies. ¹⁶Therefore, thus says the Lord, ‘I intend to remove you from the face of the earth. Before this year comes to a close, you will be dead, because you have preached rebellion against the Lord.’ ”

¹⁷During that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died.

Romans 3:1-8

Chapter 3

The Value of Judaism. ¹Is there any advantage, therefore, in being a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? ²A great deal in every respect. In the first place, they were entrusted with the words of God. ³What if some were unfaithful? Will their lack of faith nullify the fidelity of God? ⁴By no means! God must be true even if every human being is a liar,^[a] as it is written,

“That you may be justified in your words,
and vindicated when you are judged.”

⁵But if our wickedness serves to confirm the righteousness of God, what are we to say? Is God unjust (I speak of him in human terms) to bring retribution upon us? ⁶Of course not! For that would imply that God could not judge the world. ⁷But if, as a result of my falsehood, God demonstrates his truthfulness, to his greater glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? ⁸And why not say, as some people slanderously accuse us of proposing, “Let us do evil so that good may result”? Such people deserve their condemnation.

New Catholic Bible (NCB)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 131[a]

Childlike Trust in God

Footnotes

Chapter 3

Footnotes

Psalm 131^[a]