Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
David wrote this prayer.
God will help me
16 Please keep me safe, God,
because I come to you for help.
2 I have said to the Lord,
‘You are my Lord.
All the good things that I have in my life
are gifts from you.’
3 When I think about your own people who live in this land,
it makes me happy!
They are truly great people!
4 But many troubles will come
to people who choose to worship other gods.
I will not join with them
to offer gifts of blood to their gods.
I will never use the names of their gods
to make promises.
5 You, Lord, are all that I need.
What you give to me is enough,
for me and for my descendants.
6 Yes, you have given to me a good way of life.
Your gifts are better than good fields
or valuable land.
7 I will praise the Lord,
who is my guide through life.
In the dark nights,
you help me to learn what is right.
8 I will always trust the Lord to be with me.
He is very near to me,
so I will not be upset.
9 I am truly happy and I thank God.
I know that my life is safe with God.
10 You, Lord, will not leave me
in the deep hole of death.
As one who belongs to you,
you will not leave my body to spoil in the grave.
11 You will lead me along the path of life.
Because you are with me,
I am very happy.
I know that I will be with you for ever,
and that makes me very happy!
The young women of Jerusalem:
9 Tell us this, most beautiful of all women.
Why do you think that your lover is better than other men?
Why must we promise to do this for you?
The young woman:
10 My lover is very handsome and healthy.
He is the greatest man among 10,000 men.
11 His head is like very pure gold.
The hairs on his head are like waves.
They are black like a raven.
12 His eyes are like doves beside streams of water.
They are like doves that someone has washed in milk.
They shine like jewels.
13 The sides of his face are like a garden with spice trees.
Their smell is like perfume.
His lips are like lilies
with myrrh that falls from them.
14 His arms are like bars of gold
with jewels in them.
His body shines like bright ivory,
with sapphire jewels to make it more beautiful.
15 His legs are like pillars of beautiful stone.
They stand on feet that are like pure gold.
He stands tall like the mountains of Lebanon.
He is as handsome as its best cedar trees.
16 The taste of his mouth is very sweet.
Everything about him causes me to love him.
I say to you, young women of Jerusalem,
this is my lover!
This is my true friend.
The young women of Jerusalem:
6 Tell us this, most beautiful of all women.
Where has your lover gone?
Which way did he go?
Tell us, so that we can look for him with you.
The young woman:
2 My lover has gone down to his garden.
He has gone to his garden of spice trees.
He has gone there to walk in the gardens
and to pick lilies.
3 My lover belongs to me,
and I belong to him.
He moves among the lilies with his sheep.
Christ became alive again after he died
15 My Christian friends, I want you to remember the good news that I taught to you. You received it from me and you continue to believe it as a true message. 2 Because of the message that I spoke to you, God will save you. He will save you if you continue to trust that same good news. If you do not, you have believed it for nothing.
3 I received the good news from Christ, and I told that message to you. I told you the most important things:
Christ died as a sacrifice for our sins. The Bible already said how that would happen. 4 People buried his dead body. On the third day after that God raised him up to live again. The Bible already spoke about that too.
5 After that, Christ appeared to Peter. Later, he appeared to his 12 disciples. 6 And after that, he appeared to more than 500 believers at the same time. Most of those 500 people are still alive, but some of them have died. 7 Then Christ appeared to James. Later he appeared to all the apostles.
8 After all these people had seen him, Christ also appeared to me. I was like someone who was born at the wrong time. 9 Among all the apostles, I am the least important. I caused so much trouble for God's church that people should not really call me an apostle. 10 But God was very kind to me. He helped me to become a different person. And because God has been so kind to me, the result has been great. I have worked more than all the other apostles. But it was not really I myself who could do that work. No, I could do it because God was so kind to me. 11 So then, all of us apostles teach the same good news about Christ. That is the message that you have believed. It does not matter which of us told it to you, whether it was me or someone else.
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