Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 144
A Prayer for the Nation
Heading
By David.
Praise
1 Blessed be the Lord my Rock,
who trains my hands for battle,
my fingers for war.
2 He shows me mercy.
He is my stronghold, my high fortress.
He is my deliverer and my shield,
so I take refuge in him.
He subdues peoples[a] under me.
Need
3 Lord, what is man that you notice him,
the son of man that you consider him?
4 Man is like a breath.[b]
His days are like a passing shadow.
Petition
5 Lord, rip open your heavens and come down.
Touch the mountains so that they smoke.
6 Send out lightning and scatter them.
Shoot your arrows and rout them.
7 Reach down your hand from on high.
Rescue me and snatch me from the mighty waters,
from the hand of foreigners 8 whose mouths speak lies,
who raise their right hands to a false oath.[c]
Praise
9 God, I will sing a new song to you.
On the ten-stringed harp I will make music to you,
10 to you who gives victory to kings,
to you who delivers David his servant from the evil sword.
Petition
11 Rescue me and snatch me from the hand of foreigners
whose mouths speak lies,
who raise their right hands to a false oath.
The Results of Victory
12 Then our sons in their youth will be like full-grown plants.
Our daughters will be like corner pillars carved to decorate a palace.
13 Our storehouses will be filled with produce of every kind.
Our flocks will increase by thousands,
by tens of thousands in our countryside.
14 Our oxen will pull heavy loads.
There will be no breaking through our walls,
no exile into captivity,
no cry of distress in our city squares.
15 How blessed are the people for whom this is so.
How blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.
The Friends
5 5a Who is this woman coming up from the wilderness,
leaning on her lover?
The Wealth of Our House
The Woman
5b Under the apple tree I roused you.
There your mother conceived you.
There she who gave birth to you was in labor.
6 Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm,
because love is as strong as death.
Its passion is as relentless as the grave.
Its flames are flames of fire, a mighty blaze.[a]
7 Many waters cannot quench such love.
Rivers cannot wash it away.
If a man were to offer all the wealth
of his house for love,
he would be utterly scorned.
The Brothers. . .Decorated With Silver
The Brothers
8 We have a little sister.
She has no breasts.
What shall we make for our sister
on the day she is spoken for?
9 If she is a wall,
we will build towers of silver on her.
If she is a door,
we will enclose her with panels of cedar.
My Own Vineyard
The Woman
10 I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers.
Thus I have become in his eyes
like one who delivers contentment.
11 Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon.
He leased his vineyard to tenants.
Each was to bring for its fruit
a thousand shekels of silver.
12 But my own vineyard is before me.
The thousand shekels are for you, Solomon,
and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit.
The Last Call to Love
The Man
13 You who dwell in the gardens
with friends in attendance,
let me hear your voice!
Run Away With Me
The Woman
14 Run away, my love,
and be like a gazelle,
or like a young buck
on the mountains of spices.
The Plot
45 Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. They asked, “What are we going to do, because this man is doing many miraculous signs? 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. 50 You do not even consider that it is better for us[a] that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but, as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not only for that nation, but also in order to gather into one the scattered children of God.
53 So from that day on they plotted to kill him. 54 Therefore Jesus no longer walked about openly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew into a region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. And he stayed there with his disciples.
55 The Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple area, “What do you think? He certainly won’t come to the Festival, will he?” 57 The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he should report it so that they could arrest Jesus.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.