Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Trust in God’s Love

52 Why do you take pride in wrong-doing, O powerful man? The loving-kindness of God lasts all day long. ² Your tongue makes plans to destroy like a sharp knife, you who lie. ³ You love what is bad more than what is good, and you speak lies more than you speak the truth. ⁴ You love all words that destroy, O lying tongue.

⁵ But God will destroy you forever. He will pick you up and pull you away from your tent. He will pull up your roots from the land of the living. ⁶ And those who are right will see and be afraid. They will laugh at him, saying, ⁷ “Look, the man who would not make God his safe place, but trusted in his many riches and was strong in his sinful desire.”

⁸ But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the loving-kindness of God forever and ever. ⁹ I will give You thanks forever because of what You have done. And I will hope in Your name, for it is good to be where those who belong to You are.

Egypt Is Like a Cedar Tree

31 On the first day of the third month in the eleventh year, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, ² “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his people, ‘Who can be compared with you in greatness? ³ Look at Assyria, once a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches and many leaves. It was very high, and its top was among the heavy branches. ⁴ The waters made it grow, and the water under the ground made it grow high. Its rivers flowed all around its base, and spread water to all the trees of the field. ⁵ So it was higher than all the trees of the field. And it grew many long and spreading branches because it had so much water. ⁶ All the birds of the air made their nests in its branches. And under its branches all the animals of the field gave birth. All great nations lived in its shadow. ⁷ It was beautiful in its greatness with its spreading branches, for its roots went down to much water. ⁸ The cedars in God’s garden could not compare with it. The fir trees and the chestnut trees could not compare with its branches. No tree in God’s garden was like it in beauty. ⁹ I made it beautiful with its many branches. And all the trees that were in Eden were jealous of it.

¹⁰ ‘So the Lord God says, “Because it has grown high with its top among the heavy branches, its heart has become proud, ¹¹ I will give it over to a powerful ruler of the nations, and he will punish it. Because of its sin, I will drive it out. ¹² Rulers from other nations will cut it down and leave it. Its branches will fall on the mountains and in all the valleys. Its spreading branches will be broken in all the deep valleys of the land. All the people of the earth will go away from its shadow and leave it.

The Christian’s Pride Should Be in the Cross

¹¹ See what big letters I make when I write to you with my own hand. ¹² Those men who say you must go through the religious act of becoming a Jew are doing it because they want to make a good show in front of the world. They do this so they will not have to suffer because of following the way of the cross of Christ. ¹³ Those who have gone through the religious act of becoming a Jew do not even keep the Law themselves. But they want you to go through that religious act so they can be proud that you are their followers. ¹⁴ I do not want to be proud of anything except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of the cross, the ways of this world are dead to me, and I am dead to them. ¹⁵ If a person does or does not go through the religious act of becoming a Jew, it is worth nothing. The important thing is to become a new person. ¹⁶ Those who follow this way will have God’s peace and loving-kindness. They are the people of God.

¹⁷ Let no one make trouble for me from now on. For I have on my body the whip marks of one who has been a servant owned by Jesus. ¹⁸ Christian brothers, may the loving-favor of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Let it be so.