Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

This song is for the music leader.

The Lord's servant, David, wrote it.

David sang these words to the Lord when the Lord saved him from the power of his enemies. This was at the time when Saul was king.

Thank you, Lord!^[a]

³ Then Samuel said to all the Israelite people, ‘If you truly want to turn back to the Lord, you must show that you mean it. You must remove all your foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth.^[a] You must give your lives completely to the Lord. You must worship only the Lord. If you do that, he will save you from the power of the Philistines.’

⁴ So the Israelites removed all their idols of the false gods called Baal and Ashtoreth. They only worshipped the Lord.

⁵ Then Samuel told all the Israelites, ‘Meet together at Mizpah. I will pray to the Lord for you there.’

⁶ So they all met together at Mizpah. They got water from a well and they poured it out for the Lord. They did not eat food that day. They prayed and they said, ‘We have done bad things against the Lord.’

Samuel became leader of the Israelite people at Mizpah.

⁷ The Philistines heard the news that the Israelites had met together at Mizpah. So the Philistine rulers led their people to attack the Israelites. When the Israelites heard about this, they became very afraid of the Philistines. ⁸ They said to Samuel, ‘Pray to the Lord our God. Do not stop. Ask him to help us. Ask him to save us from the Philistines.’ ⁹ So Samuel took a baby lamb. He gave it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Samuel asked the Lord to help the Israelites. The Lord answered his prayer in this way:

¹⁰ While Samuel was giving the burnt offerings to the Lord, the Philistines moved nearer to attack the Israelites. But the Lord caused a very loud noise of thunder to frighten the Philistines. They became very confused and they started to run away from the Israelites. ¹¹ Then the Israelite men came out from Mizpah. They chased the Philistines as far as a place near Beth-Kar. They killed the Philistines as they chased them.

¹² After that, Samuel took a stone. He fixed it in the ground between Mizpah and Shen. He called the stone Ebenezer.^[b] He said, ‘The Lord has helped us all this way.’

¹³ That is how the Israelites won the fight against the Philistines. The Philistines did not attack Israel land again. All the time that Samuel was alive, the Lord stopped the Philistines from attacking Israel.

God judges all people in a right way

2 So I say this to each one of you: Do not judge other people. If you decide that someone else has done a bad thing, remember that you also do the same bad things. You are really saying that God should punish you also! When you judge someone, God will not punish them and then forgive you. ² When God judges people, he does it in a way that is right and fair. He punishes people who do those kind of bad things.

³ I ask each of you again: ‘Do you speak against people who do bad things, but you do those same bad things yourself?’ Then God will certainly punish you and you will not go free. ⁴ Remember that God is very kind and patient with us. He waits a long time before he punishes us. Do you not think that that is important? You should understand that God is giving you a chance to change. He waits patiently, so that you may turn away from wrong things.

⁵ But you refuse to change the way that you live. You are not sorry about the wrong things that you have done. As a result, you cause God to become even angrier with you. So he will punish you even more on the day when he will judge everyone. On that day, he will show how angry he is against people who do bad things. Everyone will know that he judges people in a right way. ⁶ He will give to each person what they ought to have because of the things that they have done. ⁷ Some people continue patiently to do good things. They want to do what is right so that God will praise them. They want to live the kind of life which death will not spoil. God will cause people like that to live with him always. ⁸ But other people think only about themselves. They refuse to obey God's true message. Instead, they continue to do things that are wrong. God will be very angry with people like that and he will punish them. ⁹ God will punish everyone who does bad things. He will do that first to the Jews, and he will do it also to the Gentiles. There will be much trouble and pain for every person who does bad things. ¹⁰ But God will praise every person who does good things. He will make them great and they will have peace in their minds. He will do that first for the Jews, and he will do it also for the Gentiles. ¹¹ God is always fair when he judges people, whoever they are.