Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
God the Righteous Judge
A Psalm of Asaph.
50 The (A)Mighty One, God the Lord,
Has spoken and called the earth
From the rising of the sun to its going down.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
(B)God will shine forth.
3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;
(C)A fire shall devour before Him,
And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.
4 (D)He shall call to the heavens from above,
And to the earth, that He may judge His people:
5 “Gather (E)My saints together to Me,
(F)Those who have [a]made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
6 Let the (G)heavens declare His righteousness,
For (H)God Himself is Judge. Selah
7 “Hear, O My people, and I will speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against you;
(I)I am God, your God!
8 (J)I will not [b]rebuke you (K)for your sacrifices
Or your burnt offerings,
Which are continually before Me.
9 (L)I will not take a bull from your house,
Nor goats out of your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is Mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
(M)For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.
13 (N)Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
14 (O)Offer to God thanksgiving,
And (P)pay your vows to the Most High.
15 (Q)Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”
16 But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
17 (R)Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?
18 When you saw a thief, you (S)consented[c] with him,
And have been a (T)partaker with adulterers.
19 You give your mouth to evil,
And (U)your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things you have done, and I kept silent;
(V)You thought that I was altogether like you;
But I will rebuke you,
And (W)set them in order before your eyes.
Principles of Separation(A)
13 On that day (B)they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people, and in it was found written (C)that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the assembly of God, 2 because they had not met the children of Israel with bread and water, but (D)hired Balaam against them to curse them. (E)However, our God turned the curse into a blessing. 3 So it was, when they had heard the Law, (F)that they separated all the mixed multitude from Israel.
23 In those days I also saw Jews who (A)had married women of (B)Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. 24 And half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according to the language of one or the other people.
25 So I (C)contended with them and [a]cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them (D)swear by God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves. 26 (E)Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many nations there was no king like him, (F)who was beloved of his God; and God made him king over all Israel. (G)Nevertheless pagan women caused even him to sin. 27 Should we then hear of your doing all this great evil, (H)transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women?”
28 And one of the sons (I)of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of (J)Sanballat the Horonite; therefore I drove him from me.
29 (K)Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and (L)the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.
30 (M)Thus I cleansed them of everything pagan. I also (N)assigned duties to the priests and the Levites, each to his service, 31 and to bringing (O)the wood offering and the firstfruits at appointed times.
(P)Remember me, O my God, for good!
Immorality Must Be Judged
9 I wrote to you in my epistle (A)not to [a]keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go (B)out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company (C)with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—(D)not even to eat with such a person.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore (E)“put away from yourselves the evil person.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.