Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 3

A Psalm of David. When he fled from Absalom his son.

¹ Lord, how they are increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me.

² Many are saying of me, There is no help for him in God. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

³ But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.

⁴ With my voice I cry to the Lord, and He hears and answers me out of His holy hill. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁵ I lay down and slept; I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me.

⁶ I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me round about.

⁷ Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God! For You have struck all my enemies on the cheek; You have broken the teeth of the ungodly.

⁸ Salvation belongs to the Lord; May Your blessing be upon Your people. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁵ Look around [you, Habakkuk, replied the Lord] among the nations and see! And be astonished! Astounded! For I am putting into effect a work in your days [such] that you would not believe it if it were told you.^(A)

⁶ For behold, I am rousing up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation who march through the breadth of the earth to take possession of dwelling places that do not belong to them.^(B)

⁷ [The Chaldeans] are terrible and dreadful; their justice and dignity proceed [only] from themselves.

⁸ Their horses also are swifter than leopards and are fiercer than the evening wolves, and their horsemen spread themselves and press on proudly; yes, their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle that hastens to devour.

⁹ They all come for violence; their faces turn eagerly forward, and they gather prisoners together like sand.

¹⁰ They scoff at kings, and rulers are a derision to them; they ridicule every stronghold, for they heap up dust [for earth mounds] and take it.

¹¹ Then they sweep by like a wind and pass on, and they load themselves with guilt, [as do all men] whose own power is their god.

¹² Are not You from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed [the Chaldean] to execute [Your] judgment, and You, O Rock, have established him for chastisement and correction.^(C)

¹³ You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and can not look [inactively] upon injustice. Why then do You look upon the plunderer? Why are you silent when the wicked one destroys him who is more righteous than [the Chaldean oppressor] is?

¹⁴ Why do You make men like the fish of the sea, like reptiles and creeping things that have no ruler [and are defenseless against their foes]?

¹⁵ [The Chaldean] brings all of them up with his hook; he catches and drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is in high spirits.

¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices [offerings] to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, because from them he lives luxuriously and his food is plentiful and rich.

¹⁷ Shall he therefore continue to empty his net and mercilessly go on slaying the nations forever?

² Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.

³ Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.

⁴ But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.

⁵ If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of ^[a]the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.

⁶ Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind.

⁷ For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything [he asks for] from the Lord,

⁸ [For being as he is] a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, decides].

⁹ Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his elevation [as a Christian, called to the true riches and to be an heir of God],

¹⁰ And the rich [person ought to glory] in being humbled [by being shown his human frailty], because like the flower of the grass he will pass away.

¹¹ For the sun comes up with a scorching heat and parches the grass; its flower falls off and its beauty fades away. Even so will the rich man wither and die in the midst of his pursuits.^(A)