Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 57

For the music leader. Do not destroy. A miktam^[a] of David, when he fled from Saul into the cave.

² There was a man in Maon who did business in Carmel. He was a very important man and owned three thousand sheep and one thousand goats. At that time, he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and attractive woman, but her husband was a hard man who did evil things. He was a Calebite.

⁴ While in the wilderness, David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten servants, telling them, “Go up to Carmel. When you get to Nabal, greet him for me. ⁶ Say this to him: ‘Peace to you,^[a] your household, and all that is yours! ⁷ I’ve heard that you are now shearing sheep. As you know, your shepherds were with us in the wilderness.^[b] We didn’t mistreat them. Moreover, the whole time they were at Carmel, nothing of theirs went missing. ⁸ Ask your servants; they will tell you the same. So please receive these young men favorably, because we’ve come on a special day. Please give whatever you have on hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

⁹ When David’s young men arrived, they said all this to Nabal on David’s behalf. Then they waited. ¹⁰ But Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is Jesse’s son? There are all sorts of slaves running away from their masters these days. ¹¹ Why should I take my bread, my water, and the meat I’ve butchered for my shearers and give it to people who came here from who knows where?” ¹² So David’s young servants turned around and went back the way they came. When they arrived, they reported every word of this to David.

¹³ Then David said to his soldiers, “All of you, strap on your swords!” So each of them strapped on their swords, and David did the same. Nearly four hundred men went up with David. Two hundred men remained back with the supplies.

¹⁴ One of Nabal’s servants told his wife Abigail, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he just yelled at them. ¹⁵ But the men were very good to us and didn’t mistreat us. Nothing of ours went missing the whole time we were out with them in the fields. ¹⁶ In fact, the whole time we were with them, watching our sheep, they were a protective wall around us both night and day. ¹⁷ Think about that and see what you can do, because trouble is coming for our master and his whole household. But he’s such a despicable person no one can speak to him.”

¹⁸ Abigail quickly took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep ready for cooking, five seahs^[c] of roasted grain, one hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes. She loaded all this on donkeys ¹⁹ and told her servants, “Go on ahead of me. I’ll be right behind you.” But she didn’t tell her husband Nabal.

²⁰ As she was riding her donkey, going down a trail on the hillside, David and his soldiers appeared, descending toward her, and she met up with them. ²¹ David had just been saying, “What a waste of time—guarding all this man’s stuff in the wilderness so that nothing of his went missing! He has repaid me evil instead of good! ²² May God deal harshly with me, David,^[d] and worse still if I leave alive even one single one who urinates on a wall^[e] belonging to him come morning!”

Confronting lawsuits in the church

6 When someone in your assembly has a legal case against another member, do they dare to take it to court to be judged by people who aren’t just, instead of by God’s people? ² Or don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to judge trivial cases? ³ Don’t you know that we will judge angels? Why not ordinary things? ⁴ So then if you have ordinary lawsuits, do you appoint people as judges who aren’t respected by the church? ⁵ I’m saying this because you should be ashamed of yourselves! Isn’t there one person among you who is wise enough to pass judgment between believers? ⁶ But instead, does a brother or sister have a lawsuit against another brother or sister, and do they do this in front of unbelievers? ⁷ The fact that you have lawsuits against each other means that you’ve already lost your case. Why not be wronged instead? Why not be cheated? ⁸ But instead you are doing wrong and cheating—and you’re doing it to your own brothers and sisters.

⁹ Don’t you know that people who are unjust won’t inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse,^{[a] 10} thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom. ¹¹ That is what some of you used to be! But you were washed clean, you were made holy to God, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.