Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

64 ^1-2 Lord, listen to my complaint: Oh, preserve my life from the conspiracy of these wicked men, these gangs of criminals. ³ They cut me down with sharpened tongues; they aim their bitter words like arrows straight at my heart. ⁴ They shoot from ambush at the innocent. Suddenly the deed is done, yet they are not afraid. ⁵ They encourage each other to do evil. They meet in secret to set their traps. “He will never notice them here,” they say. ⁶ They keep a sharp lookout for opportunities of crime. They spend long hours with all their endless evil thoughts and plans.^[a]

⁷ But God himself will shoot them down. Suddenly his arrow will pierce them. ⁸ They will stagger backward, destroyed by those they spoke against. All who see it happening will scoff at them. ⁹ Then everyone shall stand in awe and confess the greatness of the miracles of God; at last they will realize what amazing things he does. ¹⁰ And the godly shall rejoice in the Lord, and trust and praise him.

18 The further reply of Bildad the Shuhite:

² “Who are you trying to fool? Speak some sense if you want us to answer! ³ Have we become like animals to you, stupid and dumb? ⁴ Just because you tear your clothes in anger, is this going to start an earthquake? Shall we all go and hide?

⁵ “The truth remains that if you do not prosper, it is because you are wicked. And your bright flame shall be put out. ⁶ There will be darkness in every home where there is wickedness.

⁷ “The confident stride of the wicked man will be shortened; he will realize his failing strength. ^8-9 He walks into traps, and robbers will ambush him. ¹⁰ There is a booby trap in every path he takes. ¹¹ He has good cause for fear—his enemy is close behind him!

¹² “His vigor is depleted by hunger; calamity stands ready to pounce upon him. ¹³ His skin is eaten by disease. Death shall devour him. ¹⁴ The wealth he trusted in shall reject him, and he shall be brought down to the king of terrors. ¹⁵ His home shall disappear beneath a fiery barrage of brimstone. ¹⁶ He shall die from the roots up, and all his branches will be lopped off.

¹⁷ “All memory of his existence will perish from the earth; no one will remember him. ¹⁸ He will be driven out from the kingdom of light into darkness and chased out of the world. ¹⁹ He will have neither son nor grandson left, nor any other relatives. ²⁰ Old and young alike will be horrified by his fate. ²¹ Yes, that is what happens to sinners, to those rejecting God.”

¹⁸ I know very well how foolish it sounds to those who are lost,^[a] when they hear that Jesus died to save them. But we who are saved recognize this message as the very power of God. ¹⁹ For God says, “I will destroy all human plans of salvation no matter how wise they seem to be, and ignore the best ideas of men, even the most brilliant of them.”

²⁰ So what about these wise men, these scholars, these brilliant debaters of this world’s great affairs? God has made them all look foolish and shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense. ²¹ For God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never find God through human brilliance, and then he stepped in and saved all those who believed his message, which the world calls foolish and silly. ²² It seems foolish to the Jews because they want a sign from heaven as proof that what is preached is true; and it is foolish to the Gentiles because they believe only what agrees with their philosophy and seems wise to them. ²³ So when we preach about Christ dying to save them, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. ²⁴ But God has opened the eyes of those called to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, to see that Christ is the mighty power of God to save them; Christ himself is the center of God’s wise plan for their salvation. ²⁵ This so-called “foolish” plan of God is far wiser than the wisest plan of the wisest man, and God in his weakness—Christ dying on the cross—is far stronger than any man.

²⁶ Notice among yourselves, dear brothers, that few of you who follow Christ have big names or power or wealth. ²⁷ Instead, God has deliberately chosen to use ideas the world considers foolish and of little worth in order to shame those people considered by the world as wise and great. ²⁸ He has chosen a plan despised by the world, counted as nothing at all, and used it to bring down to nothing those the world considers great, ²⁹ so that no one anywhere can ever brag in the presence of God.

³⁰ For it is from God alone that you have your life through Christ Jesus. He showed us God’s plan of salvation; he was the one who made us acceptable to God; he made us pure and holy^[b] and gave himself to purchase our salvation. ³¹ As it says in the Scriptures, “If anyone is going to boast, let him boast only of what the Lord has done.”