Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

This is a song that David wrote.

It is for the music leader.

God understands me^[a]

Joshua dies

⁶ Joshua sent the people away. Each Israelite tribe went to take the part of the land that would belong to them.^{[a] 7} The Israelites continued to serve the Lord while Joshua and the old men were still alive. Joshua and those men had seen the great things that the Lord had done to help Israel.

⁸ Then the Lord's servant Joshua, the son of Nun, died at 110 years old. ⁹ The people buried him in the land that had been given to his family. That was at Timnath Heres, in Ephraim's hill country, on the north side of Gaash mountain.

A new generation turns away from the Lord

¹⁰ All the people of Joshua's generation died. The younger people no longer served the Lord. They themselves had not seen the great things that he had done to help Israel. ¹¹ The Israelites did things that the Lord saw were evil. They worshipped the idols of Baal. ¹² They turned away from the Lord God that their ancestors had worshipped. He was the one who had brought them safely out of Egypt. Instead, they served the false gods of the people who lived near them. They worshipped those gods and the Lord became very angry. ¹³ They turned away from the Lord and they worshipped the idols of Baal and Ashtoreth instead.

¹⁴ The Lord was very angry with the Israelites and he punished them. He sent robbers to attack them and take their animals and their food. He put them under the power of their enemies who lived around them. They were not strong enough to fight against their enemies. ¹⁵ When the Israelites went to fight against their enemies, the Lord turned against them. He punished them, as he said he would do. So the Israelites were in great trouble.

Paul speaks about his work as Christ's servant

10 I, Paul, need to ask you something. Perhaps you think that I am only humble when I am present there with you. You think that I only speak strongly to you when I am far away! Now I am away from you. But I am still humble and kind, like Christ is. ² So please listen to what I am asking you. Some people among you think that we live like people who belong to this world. When I come to visit you, I am sure that I will be brave enough to speak against those people. But I do not want to have to speak strongly like that against all of you.

³ It is true that we live in this world as humans. But we do not use our human ideas to fight against what is wrong. ⁴ It is like we are fighting in a war, but we do not use human weapons. Instead we use God's weapons. Those weapons are powerful enough to destroy the enemy's strong places. We use those weapons to destroy people's wrong ideas. ⁵ People may speak proud ideas that stop other people from knowing God. We show that those ideas are completely wrong. We change the way that people think, so that they want to obey Christ. ⁶ You must show that you are ready to obey completely. Then we will be ready to punish anyone who refuses to obey in any way.

⁷ Take a careful look at what is happening among you. If anyone is sure that he belongs to Christ, he should remember this: We also belong to Christ, just as he does. ⁸ You may think that I am too proud of my authority. But it is the Lord who has given that authority to us apostles. We have that authority so that we can help you become stronger as believers. We do not have it so that we can destroy you! So I am not ashamed to be proud of this.

⁹ When I write letters to you, I am not trying to frighten you. Please do not think that. ¹⁰ Some people say: ‘Paul's letters are powerful and they say strong things. But when he himself is here with us, he seems to be weak. And the words that he speaks have no value.’ ¹¹ Anyone who says things like that should understand this: There is no difference between what we write and what we do. When we come to you, we will do what we have written in our letters.