Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
To the Director: A Davidic instruction[a] about Doeg, the Edomite, when he went to Saul and told him, “David went to the house of Abimelech.”
A Rebuke to the Deceitful
52 Why do you make evil
the foundation of your boasting, mighty one?[b]
God’s gracious love never ceases.[c]
2 Your tongue, like a sharp razor, devises wicked things
and crafts treachery.
3 You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking uprightly.
4 You love all words that destroy, you deceitful tongue!
5 But God will tear you down forever;
he will take you away,
even snatching you out of your tent!
He will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 The righteous will fear when they see this,
but then they will laugh at him, saying,
7 “Look, here is a young man who refused to make God his strength;
instead, he trusted in his great wealth
and made his wickedness his strength.
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;
I trust in the gracious love of God forever and ever.
9 Therefore I will praise you forever
because of what you did;
I will proclaim that your name is good
in the midst of your faithful ones.
Egypt Learns from Assyria’s Demise
31 On the first day of the third month of the eleventh year of our captivity,[a] this message came to me from the Lord: 2 “Son of Man, tell this to Pharaoh, king of Egypt and his gangs:
‘Who do you think you are?
What makes you so great?
3 Think about Assyria,[b]
that cedar of Lebanon,
beautiful with its branches,
like a shady forest,
with an awesome height,
its summit touches the clouds.
4 Abundant water made it great,
Subterranean rivers made it grow.
Rivers surrounded the area where it had been planted,
and water channels nourished all the trees in the fields.
5 That’s why it grew taller than any of the trees in the fields.
Its boughs flourished.
Its branches grew luxurious
because all the water made it spread out well.
6 The birds in the sky made nests in its boughs;
all the beasts of the field gave birth under its branches.
All the great nations rested in its shade.
7 ‘Beautiful because it was so great,
with its long branches,
it was rooted in many bodies of water.[c]
8 The cedars in God’s garden could not compare to it;
Fir trees could not match its boughs.
The plane tree[d] never grew branches like it,
and no tree in God’s garden compares to its beauty.
9 I made it beautiful,
including all of its branches;
all the trees in God’s garden of Eden envied it!’”
Assyria’s Fall Due to Arrogance
10 “Therefore this is what the Lord God says: ‘Because of its towering height, with its summit reaching into the clouds, and because it was haughty in its position,[e] 11 I turned it over to the leader of those[f] nations, who dealt with it thoroughly. I have driven it away because of its wickedness. 12 Foreign dictators have trimmed it down to size and abandoned it. Its branches have fallen off on mountains and in all the valleys. Its boughs have broken off in all the ravines of the land. All the nations of the earth have moved out of its shade and abandoned it.
A Final Warning against Circumcision
11 Look at how large these letters are because I am writing with my own hand! 12 These people who want to impress others by their external appearance[a] are trying to force you to be circumcised, simply to avoid being persecuted for the cross of the Messiah.[b] 13 Why, not even those who are circumcised obey the Law! They simply want you to be circumcised so that they can boast about your external appearance.[c] 14 But may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah,[d] by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! 15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters. Rather, what matters is being[e] a new creation. 16 Now may peace be on all those who live by this principle, and may mercy be on the Israel of God. 17 Let no one make any more trouble for me, because I carry the scars of Jesus on my own body.
Final Greeting
18 May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah,[f] be with your spirit, brothers! Amen.
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