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]!

¹² Woe to him who builds a town with blood and establishes a city by iniquity!

¹³ Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?

¹⁴ But [the time is coming when] the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.^(A)

¹⁵ Woe to him who gives his neighbors drink, who pours out your bottle to them and adds to it your poisonous and blighting wrath and also makes them drunk, that you may look on their stripped condition and pour out foul shame [on their glory]!

¹⁶ You [yourself] will be filled with shame and contempt instead of glory. Drink also and be like an uncircumcised [heathen]! The cup [of wrath] in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you [O destroyer], and foul shame shall be upon your own glory!^(B)

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will cover and overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals [which the violence frightened away] will terrify you on account of men’s blood and the violence done to the land, to the city and all its inhabitants.

¹⁸ What profit is the graven image when its maker has formed it? It is only a molten image and a teacher of lies. For the maker trusts in his own creations [as his gods] when he makes dumb idols.

¹⁹ Woe to him who says to the wooden image, Awake! and to the dumb stone, Arise, teach! [Yet, it cannot, for] behold, it is laid over with gold and silver and there is no breath at all inside it!

²⁰ But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth hush and keep silence before Him.^(C)

¹² On the day following, when they had come away from Bethany, He was hungry.

¹³ And seeing in the distance a fig tree [covered] with leaves, He went to see if He could find any [fruit] on it [^[a]for in the fig tree the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves]. But when He came up to it, He found nothing but leaves, for the fig season had not yet come.

¹⁴ And He said to it, No one ever again shall eat fruit from you. And His disciples were listening [to what He said].

²⁰ In the morning, when they were passing along, they noticed that the fig tree was withered [completely] away to its roots.

²¹ And Peter remembered and said to Him, Master, look! The fig tree which You doomed has withered away!

²² And Jesus, replying, said to them, Have faith in God [constantly].

²³ Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea! and does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him.

²⁴ For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it].