Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 21

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ The king [David] shall joy in Your strength, O Lord; and in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!

² You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah [pause, and think of that]!

³ For You send blessings of good things to meet him; You set a crown of pure gold on his head.

⁴ He asked life of You, and You gave it to him—long life forever and evermore.

⁵ His glory is great because of Your aid; splendor and majesty You bestow upon him.

⁶ For You make him to be blessed and a blessing forever; You make him exceedingly glad with the joy of Your presence.^(A)

⁷ For the king trusts, relies on, and is confident in the Lord, and through the mercy and steadfast love of the Most High he will never be moved.

⁸ Your hand shall find all Your enemies; Your right hand shall find all those who hate You.

⁹ You will make them as if in a blazing oven in the time of Your anger; the Lord will swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire will utterly consume them.

¹⁰ Their offspring You will destroy from the earth, and their sons from among the children of men.

¹¹ For they planned evil against You; they conceived a mischievous plot which they are not able to perform.

¹² For You will make them turn their backs; You will aim Your bow [of divine justice] at their faces.

¹³ Be exalted, Lord, in Your strength; we will sing and praise Your power.

¹⁴ Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I will help you, says the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵ Behold, I will make you to be a new, sharp, threshing instrument which has teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and shall make the hills like chaff.

¹⁶ You shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest or whirlwind shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the Lord, you shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷ The poor and needy are seeking water when there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

¹⁸ I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

¹⁹ I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the wild olive; I will set the cypress in the desert, the plane [tree] and the pine [tree] together,

²⁰ That men may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

¹⁴ Personally I am satisfied about you, my brethren, that you yourselves are rich in goodness, amply filled with all [spiritual] knowledge and competent to admonish and counsel and instruct one another also.

¹⁵ Still on some points I have written to you the more boldly and unreservedly by way of reminder. [I have done so] because of the grace (the unmerited favor) bestowed on me by God

¹⁶ In making me a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. I act in the priestly service of the Gospel (the good news) of God, in order that the sacrificial offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable [to God], consecrated and made holy by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷ In Christ Jesus, then, I have legitimate reason to glory (exult) in my work for God [in what through Christ Jesus I have accomplished concerning the things of God].

¹⁸ For [of course] I will not venture (presume) to speak thus of any work except what Christ has actually done through me [as an instrument in His hands] to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed,

¹⁹ [Even as my preaching has been accompanied] with the power of signs and wonders, [and all of it] by the power of the Holy Spirit. [The result is] that starting from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel [faithfully executing, accomplishing, carrying out to the full the good news] of Christ (the Messiah) in its entirety.

²⁰ Thus my ambition has been to preach the Gospel, not where Christ’s name has already been known, lest I build on another man’s foundation;

²¹ But [instead I would act on the principle] as it is written, They shall see who have never been told of Him, and they shall understand who have never heard [of Him].^(A)