Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 139[a]
God’s Infinite Knowledge and Universal Power
1 For the director.[b] A psalm of David.
[c]O Lord, you have examined me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I stand;[d]
you perceive my thoughts from a distance.
3 You mark when I go out and when I lie down;
all my ways are open to you.
4 A word is not even on my tongue
and you, O Lord, are completely aware of it.
5 You enfold me from in front and from behind,
and you place your hand upon me.[e]
6 Your knowledge is beyond my comprehension,
far too sublime for me to attain.
7 [f]Where can I go to hide from your spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;
if I take my rest in the netherworld, you are also there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn[g]
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
and your right hand will hold me fast.
11 [h]If I say, “Surely the darkness will conceal me
and the day around me will turn to night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for to you darkness and light are the same.
13 [i]You created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am wonderfully made;
awesome are your works,
as I know very well.
15 My body was not hidden from you
when I was being made in secret.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
you saw me in the womb.[j]
16 [k]The sum total of my days
were all recorded in your book.[l]
My life was fashioned
before it had come into being.
17 How precious to me are your designs, O God!
How vast in number they are!
18 If I were to attempt to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,[m]
I am still with you.
Chapter 5
Cure of Naaman.[a] 1 There was a certain Naaman, who was the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was an honorable man, highly esteemed by his master, because it was through him that the Lord had delivered Aram. He was a brave soldier, but he had leprosy.
2 Aramean raiders had gone out into the land of Israel and had taken a young girl captive who served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my lord would present himself to the prophet who is in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 He went to his lord and said, “This is what the young girl from the land of Israel said.”
5 The king of Aram said, “Go! I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”
He went on his way, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothing. 6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel which said, “With this letter I am sending you my servant Naaman so that you might cure him of his leprosy.”
7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, with the power to kill and give life, that he sends me a man to heal him of his leprosy? Think of it, see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.”
8 When Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me so that he might know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9 So Naaman went with his horses and his chariot, and he stood at the door to Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash seven times in the Jordan, and your skin will be restored, and you will be clean.”
11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord, his God, and wave his hand over the place and heal the leprosy. 12 Are not the Abana and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all of the rivers of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be made clean?”
So he turned away and left in a rage. 13 His servants approached him and spoke to him saying, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he said, ‘Wash and be made clean.’ ”
14 He went down and he bathed himself in the Jordan seven times as the man of God had instructed him to do. His skin became like the skin of a little child, and he was clean.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you waverers. 9 Be sorrowful, lament, and weep. Let your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Do Not Judge Others.[a] Do not slander one another, my brethren. Whoever speaks ill of a brother or passes judgment on a brother speaks ill of the Law and passes judgment on the Law. But if you judge the Law, you are not keeping it but passing judgment upon it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save or to destroy. Who then are you to pass judgment on a neighbor?
13 A Warning against Presumption.[b] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall head off to this or that town and spend a year doing business there and making money.” 14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
What is your life, after all? For you are like a mist that appears for a brief time and then vanishes. 15 Instead, what you ought to say is, “If it is the Lord’s will, we shall live to do this or that.” 16 But instead you boast in your arrogance, and all such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits a sin.
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