Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 57^[a]

Trust in God amid Suffering

¹ For the director.^[b] According to “Do not destroy.” A miktam of David. When he fled from Saul into the cave.

Nabal and Abigail. ² There was a certain man from Maon who had property in Carmel, for he was very wealthy. He owned three thousand sheep and one thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ His name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was a good woman, intelligent and beautiful, but her husband, who was a Calebite, was difficult and disagreeable in his dealings.

⁴ While David was in the wilderness, he heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel and approach Nabal, greeting him in my name. ⁶ Say to him, ‘May you have a long and pleasant life, and may your household prosper, and may all that you own multiply. ⁷ I have heard that you were shearing. When your shepherds were with us, we did not harm them nor did anything that belonged to them go missing the whole time they were at Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore, show your favor to these young men, for we are here on a feast day. Please give your servants and your son David whatever comes to hand.’ ”

⁹ When David’s young men arrived, they said all of these things to Nabal in David’s name. Then they waited. ¹⁰ Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many slaves these days who have run away from their masters. ¹¹ Why should I take my bread and my water, and the meat that I have butchered for my shearers, and give them to men when I do not even know from where they have come?”

¹² David’s young men turned and went on their way. They came back and told him all these things. ¹³ David said to his men, “Let each man put on his sword.” Each man put on his sword, and David also put on his sword. About four hundred men went up with David while the other two hundred remained with the supplies.

¹⁴ One of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Behold, David sent messengers into the wilderness to greet our master, and he insulted them. ¹⁵ But they have treated us well, and they have not harmed us, nor did anything go missing when we were wandering about in the fields near them. ¹⁶ Night and day, the whole time that we were with them tending the sheep, they were like a wall around us. ¹⁷ Now think about it and figure out what you will do, for certain disaster is awaiting our master and his entire household. He is a son of Belial, and no one can speak to him.”

¹⁸ Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of parched grain, one hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and she loaded it all on donkeys. ¹⁹ She then said to her servants, “Go on ahead, I will follow you.” But she did not tell this to her husband.

²⁰ As she was riding along on the donkey, she went down into a mountain ravine, and there was David and his men coming down the other side, and she met them. ²¹ David had been saying, “Surely it was in vain that I watched over all of his things in the wilderness so that nothing that he owned went missing. He has paid me back evil for good. ²² May God do this to David, and even more, if by morning I have left alive even one male who belongs to him.”

Chapter 6

Avoid Lawsuits against Each Other.^{[a] 1} If any of you has a dispute with another, how can you seek judgment before those who are unrighteous^[b] instead of before the saints? ² Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, how can you consider yourselves as incompetent to deal with smaller cases? ³ Do you not realize that we are to judge angels?^[c] Why then should we not deal with matters of this life?

⁴ Therefore, if you have such matters to resolve, how can you seek judgment from those who have no standing in the Church? ⁵ I write this to make you ashamed. Is it really possible that there is no one among you who is wise enough to mediate a dispute between brethren? ⁶ Why should a brother go to court against another brother, seeking a decision from unbelievers?

⁷ In truth, the very fact that you engage in lawsuits with one another is a misfortune for you. Why not prefer to be wronged? Why not prefer to be defrauded? ⁸ Instead, you yourself are guilty of wronging and defrauding your own brethren.

⁹ Are you not aware that wrongdoers will never inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites,^{[d] 10} thieves, extortioners, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ Some of you were once such as these. However, now you have been washed clean, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.