Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Davidic Psalm, when he fled from his son Absalom.
God Delivers His Servants
3 Lord, I have so many persecutors!
Many are rising up against me!
2 Many are saying about me,
“God will never deliver him!”
3 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.
4 I cry aloud[a] to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy mountain.
5 I lie down and sleep,
I wake up, because the Lord sustains me.
6 I will not fear multitudes of[b] people,
who set themselves against me on every side.
7 Arise, Lord!
Deliver me, my God!
For you strike the jaw of all my enemies,
and you break the teeth of the wicked.
8 Deliverance comes from the Lord!
May your blessing be on your people.
God’s Response: The Coming Chaldean Invasion
5 “Look out at the nations and pay attention!
Be astounded! Be really astounded!
Because something is happening in your lifetime
that you won’t believe, even if it were described down to the smallest detail.[a]
6 Watch out! For I am bringing in the Chaldeans,[b]
that cruel and impetuous[c] people,
who sweep across the earth
dispossessing people[d] from homes not their own.
7 They are terrible and fearsome;
their brand of justice and sense of honor derive only from themselves!
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
and more cunning than wolves that attack at night.
Their horsemen are galloping
as they approach from far away.
They swoop in like ravenous vultures.[e]
9 “They all come to oppress—
hordes of them, their faces pressing onward—
they take prisoners as numerous as[f] the desert sand!
10 They make fun of kings,
deriding those who rule.
They laugh at all of the fortified places,
constructing ramps to seize them.
11 Then like[g] the wind sweeping by
they will pass through—
they’re guilty because they say[h] their power is their god.”
The Prophet’s Second Complaint
12 “Haven’t you existed forever,
Lord my God, my Holy One?
We won’t die!
Lord, you’ve prepared them[i] for judgment;
Rock, you’ve sentenced them[j] to correction.
13 Your eyes are too pure to gaze upon evil;
and you cannot tolerate wickedness.
So why do you tolerate the treacherous?
And why do you stay silent
while the wicked devour those who are more righteous than they are?
14 “You have fashioned mankind like fish in the ocean,
like creeping things that have no ruler.
15 The adversary[k] captures them with a hook,
gathering them up in a fishing net.
He collects them with a dragnet,
rejoicing and gloating over his catch.[l]
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his fishing net,
and burns incense in the presence of his dragnet,
because by them his assets increase
and he gets plenty of food.
17 Is he to continue to empty his fishing net?
Will he ever stop killing entire[m] nations without mercy?”
Responding Wisely to Life
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you are involved in various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 But you must let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to everyone generously without a rebuke, and it will be given to him. 6 But he must ask in faith, without any doubts, for the one who has doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 Such a person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 He is a double-minded man, unstable in all he undertakes.[a]
9 A brother of humble means should rejoice in his having been exalted, 10 and a rich person in his having been humbled, because he will fade away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun comes up with its scorching heat and dries up the grass. The flower in it drops off, and its beauty is gone. That is how the rich person will fade away in his pursuits.
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