Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
9 Worship God if you want the best;
worship opens doors to all his goodness.
10 Young lions on the prowl get hungry,
but God-seekers are full of God.
11 Come, children, listen closely;
I’ll give you a lesson in God worship.
12 Who out there has a lust for life?
Can’t wait each day to come upon beauty?
13 Guard your tongue from profanity,
and no more lying through your teeth.
14 Turn your back on sin; do something good.
Embrace peace—don’t let it get away!
Zophar’s Counsel
How Wisdom Looks from the Inside
11 1-6 Now it was the turn of Zophar from Naamath:
“What a flood of words! Shouldn’t we put a stop to it?
Should this kind of loose talk be permitted?
Job, do you think you can carry on like this and we’ll say nothing?
That we’ll let you rail and mock and not step in?
You claim, ‘My doctrine is sound
and my conduct impeccable.’
How I wish God would give you a piece of his mind,
tell you what’s what!
I wish he’d show you how wisdom looks from the inside,
for true wisdom is mostly ‘inside.’
But you can be sure of this,
you haven’t gotten half of what you deserve.
7-12 “Do you think you can explain the mystery of God?
Do you think you can diagram God Almighty?
God is far higher than you can imagine,
far deeper than you can comprehend,
Stretching farther than earth’s horizons,
far wider than the endless ocean.
If he happens along, throws you in jail
then hauls you into court, can you do anything about it?
He sees through vain pretensions,
spots evil a long way off—
no one pulls the wool over his eyes!
Hollow men, hollow women, will wise up
about the same time mules learn to talk.
Reach Out to God
13-20 “Still, if you set your heart on God
and reach out to him,
If you scrub your hands of sin
and refuse to entertain evil in your home,
You’ll be able to face the world unashamed
and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless.
You’ll forget your troubles;
they’ll be like old, faded photographs.
Your world will be washed in sunshine,
every shadow dispersed by dawn.
Full of hope, you’ll relax, confident again;
you’ll look around, sit back, and take it easy.
Expansive, without a care in the world,
you’ll be hunted out by many for your blessing.
But the wicked will see none of this.
They’re headed down a dead-end road
with nothing to look forward to—nothing.”
8-10 Stephen, brimming with God’s grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them. But then some men from the meeting place whose membership was made up of freed slaves, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some others from Cilicia and Asia, went up against him trying to argue him down. But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke.
11 So in secret they bribed men to lie: “We heard him cursing Moses and God.”
12-14 That stirred up the people, the religious leaders, and religion scholars. They grabbed Stephen and took him before the High Council. They put forward their bribed witnesses to testify: “This man talks nonstop against this Holy Place and God’s Law. We even heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth would tear this place down and throw out all the customs Moses gave us.”
15 As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn’t take their eyes off him—his face was like the face of an angel!
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson