Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

God Cares for His People

139 O Lord, You have looked through me and have known me. ² You know when I sit down and when I get up. You understand my thoughts from far away. ³ You look over my path and my lying down. You know all my ways very well. ⁴ Even before I speak a word, O Lord, You know it all. ⁵ You have closed me in from behind and in front. And You have laid Your hand upon me. ⁶ All You know is too great for me. It is too much for me to understand.

¹³ For You made the parts inside me. You put me together inside my mother. ¹⁴ I will give thanks to You, for the greatness of the way I was made brings fear. Your works are great and my soul knows it very well. ¹⁵ My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret and put together with care in the deep part of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw me before I was put together. And all the days of my life were written in Your book before any of them came to be.

¹⁷ Your thoughts are of great worth to me, O God. How many there are! ¹⁸ If I could number them, there would be more than the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.

The Death of Joshua

⁶ When Joshua sent the people of Israel away, each one went home to his own land. ⁷ The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the leaders who lived longer than Joshua and who had seen all the great works the Lord had done for Israel. ⁸ Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old. ⁹ They buried him within his land in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. ¹⁰ All the people of that day died. The children who came after them did not know the Lord. They did not know about the things He had done for Israel.

Israel Is No Longer Faithful to the Lord

¹¹ Then the people of Israel sinned in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals, the gods of the Canaanites. ¹² They turned away from the Lord, the God of their fathers, Who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods of the nations around them, and worshiped them. So they made the Lord angry. ¹³ They turned away from the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. ¹⁴ The Lord was angry with Israel. He gave them into the hands of angry men who robbed them. He sold them into the hands of those around them who hated them. The people of Israel could no longer stand in front of those who hated them. ¹⁵ The Lord punished them everywhere they went. The Lord did what He had told them and promised them He would do. The people were very troubled.

Paul Proves He Is a Missionary

10 I, Paul, ask you this myself. I do it through Christ Who is so gentle and kind. Some people say that I am gentle and quiet when I am with you, but that I have no fear and that my language is strong when I am away from you. ² Do not make me speak strong words to you when I come. Some people think we want the things of the world because of what we do and say. I have decided to talk to these people if I have to. ³ It is true, we live in a body of flesh. But we do not fight like people of the world. ⁴ We do not use those things to fight with that the world uses. We use the things God gives to fight with and they have power. Those things God gives to fight with destroy the strong-places of the devil. ⁵ We break down every thought and proud thing that puts itself up against the wisdom of God. We take hold of every thought and make it obey Christ. ⁶ We are ready to punish those who will not obey as soon as you obey in everything.

⁷ You are seeing things only as men see them. If anyone feels sure he belongs to Christ, he should remember that we belong to Christ also. ⁸ I am not ashamed if I say this of myself. The Lord gave me the right and the power to help you become stronger, not to break you down. ⁹ I do not want you to think I am trying to make you afraid with my letters. ¹⁰ They say, “His letters are strong and they make us think. When he is here with us, he is weak and he is hard to listen to.” ¹¹ What we say in our letters we will do when we get there. They should understand this.