Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Treacherous Tongue!
Psalm 52
1 For the music director: a contemplative song of David, 2 when Doeg the Edomite came and reported to Saul telling him, “David went to Ahimelech’s house.”
3 Why do you brag about evil, mighty man?
God’s lovingkindness is every day.
4 Your tongue plots destruction,
like a sharp razor, working deceit.
5 You love evil instead of good,
lying rather than speaking right. Selah
6 You love only devouring words—
treacherous tongue!
7 God will pull you down forever,
and snatch you, rip you out of your tent,
and uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
8 Then the righteous will see and fear,
and laugh at him:
9 “Here is the man who did not make God his stronghold.
Instead he trusted in his great riches—
and was strong in his evil desire.”
10 But I—I am like an olive tree flourishing in the House of God.
I trust in God’s lovingkindness forever and ever.
11 I will praise You forever for what You have done.
I will hope in Your Name, for it is good,
in the presence of Your kedoshim.
Fall of the Haughty Cedar
31 On the first day of the third month of the eleventh year, the word of Adonai came to me saying: 2 “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude:
‘Who is like you in your greatness?
3 Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon,
with beautiful branches shadowing the forest,
of lofty height.
Its top was in leafy branches.
4 Water nourished it,
the deep made it tall,
with its rivers going around its planting
as it sent out its water-courses
to all the trees of the field.
5 Therefore its height was loftier
than all the trees of the field.
Its branches multiplied
and its boughs became long
because of the abundant water in its shoots.
6 All the birds of the sky nested in its branches.
All the beasts of the field gave birth to their young under its branches.
All great nations lived under its shade.
7 It was beautiful in its greatness,
in the length of its branches,
for its root was in abundant water.
8 The cedars in the garden of God
could not compare with it.
No cypress trees could rival its boughs.
No plane-trees could match its branches.
No tree in the garden of God
could compare to its beauty.
9 I made it beautiful with its many limbs.
All the trees of Eden in God’s garden envied it.’”
10 Therefore thus says Adonai Elohim:
“Because you were exalted in height
—its top set up among leafy branches,
its heart haughty in its height—
11 I gave it into the hand of a ruler of nations,
who surely dealt with it.
I drove it out
as befits its wickedness.
12 Ruthless barbarians from the nations cut it down. They cast it down on the mountains and in all the valleys its branches fell. Its branches have laid broken in all the streambeds of the land. All the people of the earth have come out from its shade and abandoned it.
Living under God’s Favor
11 Notice the large letters—I am writing to you with my own hand. 12 Those wanting to look good outwardly[a] are trying to force you to be circumcised—only so they will not be persecuted for the cross of Messiah. 13 For not even the circumcised keep Torah themselves. Yet they want to have you circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. 14 But may I never boast—except in the cross of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. Through Him the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means[b] anything—but only a new creation. 16 Now as many as live by this rule[c]—shalom and mercy on them and on the Israel of God.
17 From now on let no one make trouble for me, for I bear on my body the scars[d] of Yeshua.
18 The grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.