Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

This is a song that David wrote when he ran away from his son, Absalom.^[a]

A morning song

¹² It will be very bad for anyone who kills people so that he can build a city for himself. It will be bad for anyone who does wicked things to make his town great.

¹³ Listen! The Lord Almighty has commanded this: All the work that people do to get things for themselves is useless. The things that the nations work so hard to get will become smoke! ¹⁴ But people everywhere will one day recognize the Lord's great glory. Those people will fill the whole earth, as the waters fill the sea.

¹⁵ It will be very bad for you! You cause your neighbours to become drunk.^[a] You are so angry that you make them drink too much wine. You are happy when they are so drunk that you can see their bare bodies. ¹⁶ But it is you who will become ashamed, not great. You will become drunk so that people see you with no clothes on! The Lord has a cup of wine in his right hand. He is ready to give it to you as a punishment. You will no longer be great, but you will be ashamed.

¹⁷ You have done cruel things to the people in Lebanon. You destroyed their animals. The Lord will punish you for the things that you have done, and you will be very afraid. You have murdered people. You have destroyed the land and the towns and the people who live in them.

¹⁸ What value does an idol have? What help can it give? Somebody has made it as the image of a false god. It can only tell false messages. Why should its maker trust it for help? He has used wood or metal to make it and it cannot speak!

¹⁹ It will be very bad for anyone who says to a piece of wood, “Wake up!” It will be bad for anyone who says to a stone that cannot speak, “Get up and help me!” It cannot teach you! It has gold or silver to make it look nice, but it is not alive.

²⁰ But the Lord rules from his holy temple. Everybody on the earth should be quiet in front of him.’

A tree without fruit

¹² On the next day, they left Bethany. Jesus was hungry. ¹³ He saw a fig tree which was a long way away. There were leaves on it. So he went to see if it had fruit on it. When he reached it, he found nothing except leaves. That was because it was not the right season for it to have fruit. ¹⁴ So Jesus said to the tree, ‘Nobody will ever eat your fruit again.’ And his disciples heard what he said.

The fig tree is dead

²⁰ The next morning, Jesus and his disciples passed the fig tree. They saw that it was completely dead. ²¹ Peter remembered what Jesus had said. So he said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, look at that fig tree. You said that it should die, and it has died.’

²² So Jesus said to them, ‘You must believe in God. ²³ I tell you this: A person could say to this mountain, “Move and throw yourself into the sea.” Then it will happen like he says. But he must not let other ideas come into his mind. He must really believe that those things will happen. If he does believe it, God will do those things for him. ²⁴ So I tell you this. When you pray to ask God for anything, believe in him. Believe that you have received that thing. Then you will have whatever you have asked for.