Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 56[a]
Boundless Trust in God
1 For the director.[b] According to Yonath elem rehoqim. A miktam of David. When the Philistines seized him at Gath.
2 Be merciful to me, O God,
for people are trampling upon me;
all day long they keep up their attack.
3 My foes pursue me all day long,
with their forces too many to number.
4 When I am terrified,
I place my trust in you.
5 In God, whose word[c] I praise,
in God I place my trust and know no fear;
what can people do to me?
6 All day long they slander me;
their one thought is to bring evil upon me.
7 In groups they hide in ambush
and spy on my every step,
determined to take my life.
8 Shall they escape in their iniquity?
Strike down the nations, O God, in your anger.
9 You have kept count of my wanderings
and stored my tears in your flask,
recording all these in your book.[d]
10 My foes will turn back
when I call out to you.
Of this I am confident:
that God is on my side.
11 In God, whose word I praise—
in the Lord, whose word I praise—
12 in God I place my trust and know no fear;
what can people do to me?
13 I am bound, O God, by vows[e] to you,
and I will pay you my debt of gratitude.
14 For you have delivered my life from death
and my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk in the presence of God[f]
in the light of the living.
8 The word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9 “Arise and go to Zarephath[a] which belongs to Sidon and live there. I have commanded a woman there who is a widow to take care of you.”
10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the gate to the city, there was a woman there who was a widow. She was gathering sticks, and he called out to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a jar so that I can have something to drink.”
11 As she went to get it for him, he called out to her and said, “Please also bring me a bit of bread in your hand.” 12 But she said to him, “As the Lord, your God, lives, I do not have any bread. I only have a handful of flour in a jar and a little bit of oil in a jug. I am gathering two sticks so that I can prepare it for myself and my son so that we can eat it and die.”
13 Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go and do what you have said, but first make a small piece of bread and bring it to me. Afterwards, you can make some for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour will not be used up, the jug of oil will not go dry, up until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’ ”
15 She went and did what Elijah had told her to do. She, and he, and her household ate for a long time. 16 The jar of flour was not used up, and the jug of oil did not go dry, just as the word of the Lord had foretold through Elijah.
The Mysterious Wisdom of God
The Plan of God, True Wisdom. 6 However, to those who are mature, we do speak of wisdom, although not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age[a] whose end is not far distant. 7 Rather, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age comprehended it. If they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.[b] 9 For as it is written,
“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard,
nor has the human heart imagined
what God has prepared for those who love him.”
10 The Spirit Enables Faith To Mature. However, God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit explores everything, even the depths of God. 11 And just as no human being comprehends any person’s innermost being except the person’s own spirit within him, so also no one comprehends what pertains to God except the Spirit of God.
12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed upon us by God. 13 And we speak of these things in words taught to us not by human wisdom but by the Spirit, expressing spiritual things in spiritual words.[c]
14 An unspiritual person refuses to accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him such things are foolish. He is unable to understand them because they can be discerned only in a spiritual way. 15 A spiritual person[d] discerns all things, and he is himself subject to no one else’s judgment:
16 “For who has ever known the mind of the Lord?
Who has ever been his instructor?”
But we possess the mind of Christ.
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