Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
12 Worship the Lord, Jerusalem!
Praise your God, Zion!
13 Because God secures the bars on your gates,
God blesses the children you have there.
14 God establishes your borders peacefully.
God fills you full with the very best wheat.
15 God issues his command to the earth—
God’s word speeds off fast!
16 God spreads snow like it was wool;
God scatters frost like it was ashes;
17 God throws his hail down like crumbs—
who can endure God’s freezing cold?
18 Then God issues his word and melts it all away!
God makes his winds blow;
the water flows again.
19 God proclaims his word to Jacob;
his statutes and rules to Israel.
20 God hasn’t done that with any other nation;
those nations have no knowledge of God’s rules.[a]
Praise the Lord!
David addresses Israel’s leaders
28 David assembled all of Israel’s leaders in Jerusalem, the leaders of the tribes, the leaders of the divisions that served the king, the commanders of units of a thousand and a hundred, the officials in charge of all the property and livestock of the king and his sons, as well as the officers, warriors, and all the valiant men. 2 Then King David stood up and said:
Listen to me, my relatives and my people. I wanted to build a temple as the permanent home for the chest containing the Lord’s covenant, our God’s footrest. But when I prepared to build it, 3 God said to me, You must not build a temple for my name, because you are a military man and you’ve shed blood. 4 The Lord, the God of Israel, chose me from my whole household to become king over Israel forever. He chose Judah as leader, and within Judah’s family, my household, and among my father’s family he was pleased with me, making me king over all Israel. 5 And from all the many sons the Lord has given me, he has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the Lord’s kingdom over Israel. 6 He said to me: Your son Solomon will build my temple and my courtyards, for I’ve chosen him to become my son even as I myself will become his father. 7 I’ll establish his kingdom forever if he remains committed to keeping my commands and case laws as he does now.
8 So now, in the presence of all the Lord’s assembly[a] and with God as our witness, carefully observe all the commands of the Lord your God, so that you may hold on to this good land and pass it on to your children forever. 9 As for you, Solomon, my son, acknowledge your father’s God and serve him with enthusiastic devotion, because the Lord searches every mind and understands the motive behind every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you abandon him, he will reject you forever. 10 Now then, since the Lord has chosen you to build a temple for him[b] as the sanctuary, work hard.
10 I laid a foundation like a wise master builder according to God’s grace that was given to me, but someone else is building on top of it. Each person needs to pay attention to the way they build on it. 11 No one can lay any other foundation besides the one that is already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 So, whether someone builds on top of the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, or hay, 13 each one’s work will be clearly shown. The day will make it clear, because it will be revealed with fire—the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 If anyone’s work survives, they’ll get a reward. 15 But if anyone’s work goes up in flames, they’ll lose it. However, they themselves will be saved as if they had gone through a fire. 16 Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and God’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If someone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person, because God’s temple is holy, which is what you are.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible