Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
The Lord Helps His Troubled People
A Psalm of David (A)when he fled from Absalom his son.
3 Lord, how they have increased who trouble me!
Many are they who rise up against me.
2 Many are they who say of me,
“There is no help for him in God.” Selah
3 But You, O Lord, are (B)a shield [a]for me,
My glory and (C)the One who lifts up my head.
4 I cried to the Lord with my voice,
And (D)He heard me from His (E)holy hill. Selah
The Lord’s Reply
5 “Look(A) among the nations and watch—
Be utterly astounded!
For I will work a work in your days
Which you would not believe, though it were told you.
6 For indeed I am (B)raising up the Chaldeans,
A bitter and hasty (C)nation
Which marches through the breadth of the earth,
To possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful;
Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses also are (D)swifter than leopards,
And more fierce than evening wolves.
Their [a]chargers [b]charge ahead;
Their cavalry comes from afar;
They fly as the (E)eagle that hastens to eat.
9 “They all come for violence;
Their faces are set like the east wind.
They gather captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings,
And princes are scorned by them.
They deride every stronghold,
For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.
11 Then his [c]mind changes, and he transgresses;
He commits offense,
(F)Ascribing this power to his god.”
The Prophet’s Second Question
12 Are You not (G)from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, (H)You have appointed them for judgment;
O Rock, You have marked them for (I)correction.
13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil,
And cannot look on wickedness.
Why do You look on those who deal treacherously,
And hold Your tongue when the wicked devours
A person more righteous than he?
14 Why do You make men like fish of the sea,
Like creeping things that have no ruler over them?
15 They take up all of them with a hook,
They catch them in their net,
And gather them in their dragnet.
Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16 Therefore (J)they sacrifice to their net,
And burn incense to their dragnet;
Because by them their share is [d]sumptuous
And their food plentiful.
17 Shall they therefore empty their net,
And continue to slay nations without pity?
Profiting from Trials
2 My brethren, (A)count it all joy (B)when you fall into various trials, 3 (C)knowing that the testing of your faith produces [a]patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be [b]perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 (D)If any of you lacks wisdom, (E)let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and (F)it will be given to him. 6 (G)But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is (H)a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
The Perspective of Rich and Poor
9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10 but the rich in his humiliation, because (I)as a flower of the field he will pass away. 11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.