Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

57 O God, have pity, for I am trusting you! I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings until this storm is past. ² I will cry to the God of heaven who does such wonders for me. ³ He will send down help from heaven to save me because of his love and his faithfulness. He will rescue me from these liars who are so intent upon destroying me. ⁴ I am surrounded by fierce lions—hotheads whose teeth are sharp as spears and arrows. Their tongues are like swords. ⁵ Lord, be exalted above the highest heavens! Show your glory high above the earth. ⁶ My enemies have set a trap for me. Frantic fear grips me. They have dug a pitfall in my path. But look! They themselves have fallen into it!

⁷ O God, my heart is quiet and confident. No wonder I can sing your praises! ⁸ Rouse yourself, my soul! Arise, O harp and lyre! Let us greet the dawn with song! ⁹ I will thank you publicly throughout the land. I will sing your praises among the nations. ¹⁰ Your kindness and love are as vast as the heavens. Your faithfulness is higher than the skies.

¹¹ Yes, be exalted, O God, above the heavens. May your glory shine throughout the earth.

² A wealthy man from Maon owned a sheep ranch there, near the village of Carmel. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and was at his ranch at this time for the sheepshearing. ³ His name was Nabal and his wife, a beautiful and very intelligent woman, was named Abigail. But the man, who was a descendant of Caleb, was uncouth, churlish, stubborn, and ill-mannered.

⁴ When David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep, ⁵ he sent ten of his young men to Carmel to give him this message: ⁶ “May God prosper you and your family and multiply everything you own. ⁷ I am told that you are shearing your sheep and goats. While your shepherds have lived among us, we have never harmed them, nor stolen anything from them the whole time they have been in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men and they will tell you whether or not this is true. Now I have sent my men to ask for a little contribution from you, for we have come at a happy time of holiday. Please give us a present of whatever is at hand.”

⁹ The young men gave David’s message to Nabal and waited for his reply.

¹⁰ “Who is this fellow David?” he sneered. “Who does this son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run away from their masters. ¹¹ Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I’ve slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a gang who comes from God knows where?”

¹² So David’s messengers returned and told him what Nabal had said.

¹³ “Get your swords!” was David’s reply as he strapped on his own. Four hundred of them started off with David and two hundred remained behind to guard their gear.

¹⁴ Meanwhile, one of Nabal’s men went and told Abigail, “David sent men from the wilderness to talk to our master, but he insulted them and railed at them. ^15-16 But David’s men were very good to us and we never suffered any harm from them; in fact, day and night they were like a wall of protection to us and the sheep, and nothing was stolen from us the whole time they were with us. ¹⁷ You’d better think fast, for there is going to be trouble for our master and his whole family—he’s such a stubborn lout that no one can even talk to him!”

¹⁸ Then Abigail hurriedly took two hundred loaves of bread, two barrels of wine, five dressed sheep, two bushels of roasted grain, one hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and packed them onto donkeys.

¹⁹ “Go on ahead,” she said to her young men, “and I will follow.” But she didn’t tell her husband what she was doing. ²⁰ As she was riding down the trail on her donkey, she met David coming toward her.

²¹ David had been saying to himself, “A lot of good it did us to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness so that not one thing was lost or stolen, but he has repaid me bad for good. All that I get for my trouble is insults. ²² May God curse me if even one of his men remains alive by tomorrow morning!”

6 How is it that when you have something against another Christian, you “go to law” and ask a heathen court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other Christians to decide which of you is right? ² Don’t you know that someday we Christians are going to judge and govern the world? So why can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves? ³ Don’t you realize that we Christians will judge and reward the very angels in heaven? So you should be able to decide your problems down here on earth easily enough. ⁴ Why then go to outside judges who are not even Christians?^{[a] 5} I am trying to make you ashamed. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these arguments? ⁶ But, instead, one Christian sues another and accuses his Christian brother in front of unbelievers.

⁷ To have such lawsuits at all is a real defeat for you as Christians. Why not just accept mistreatment and leave it at that? It would be far more honoring to the Lord to let yourselves be cheated. ⁸ But, instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong, cheating others, even your own brothers.

^9-10 Don’t you know that those doing such things have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who live immoral lives, who are idol worshipers, adulterers or homosexuals—will have no share in his Kingdom. Neither will thieves or greedy people, drunkards, slanderers, or robbers. ¹¹ There was a time when some of you were just like that but now your sins are washed away, and you are set apart for God; and he has accepted you because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you.