Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Blessed is the Righteous Man

Psalm 112

¹³ “Suppose a man takes a wife and goes t0 her and then dislikes her, ¹⁴ accuses her of shameful things and gives her a bad reputation by saying, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I didn’t find her virginity.’ ¹⁵ Then the father of the young woman is to take her and her mother is to bring out the signs of the young woman’s virginity to the city elders at the gate. ¹⁶ The young lady’s father is to tell the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he hates her. ¹⁷ Indeed, he has accused her of shameful things, saying, “I didn’t find your daughter’s virginity.” Yet these are the signs of my daughter’s virginity.’ They are to spread the wedding cloth before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ The elders of that city are to take the man and punish him. ¹⁹ Then they are to fine him 100 pieces of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought an evil name on a virgin of Israel. Then she is to be his wife—he may not send her away all his days.

²⁰ “But if this thing is true—that the signs of virginity were not found in the young lady— ²¹ then they are to bring the young woman out to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city are to stone her with stones to death, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to behave like a prostitute in her father’s house. So you are to purge the evil from your midst.

²² “Suppose a man is found lying with a married woman. Then both of them are to die—the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you are to purge the evil from Israel.

²³ “Suppose there is a young woman who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her. ²⁴ Then you are to bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them with stones to death—the young woman because she did not cry out in the town, and the man because he humiliated his neighbor’s wife. So you are to purge the evil from your midst.

²⁵ “But if the man finds the engaged woman in the field, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her is to die. ²⁶ But to the young woman you are to do nothing—there is no sin in the young woman deserving of death. For this matter is the same as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him— ²⁷ for he found her in the field, the engaged woman cried out, and there was no one to save her.

²⁸ “Suppose a man finds a young virgin who is not engaged, grabs her and lies with her, and they are discovered. ²⁹ Then the man who lay with her is to give to the young woman’s father 50 pieces of silver, and she is to be his wife, since he has humiliated her—he may not send her away all his days.

Counsel About Marriage

7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. ² But because of much immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. ³ Let the husband fulfill his obligation to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have the rights to her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband does not have the rights to his own body, but the wife. ⁵ Do not deprive one another—except by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.^[a] Then come together again, so that satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ⁶ But this I say as a concession, not as a command. ⁷ Yet I wish that all men were like me. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this way and another that.

⁸ But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them to remain as I am. ⁹ But if they do not have self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with desire.