Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 100

A Psalm of thanksgiving and for the thank offering.

¹ Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands!

² Serve the Lord with gladness! Come before His presence with singing!

³ Know (perceive, recognize, and understand with approval) that the Lord is God! It is He Who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]! We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.^(A)

⁴ Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name!

⁵ For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.

¹⁷ And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between the rams and the great he-goats [the malicious and the tyrants of the pasture].

¹⁸ Is it too little for you that you feed on the best pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? And to have drunk of the waters clarified by subsiding, but you must foul the rest of the water with your feet?

¹⁹ And My flock, must they feed on what your feet have trodden and drink what your feet have fouled?

²⁰ Therefore thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I Myself, will judge between fat sheep and impoverished sheep, or fat goats and lean goats.

²¹ Because you push with side and with shoulder and thrust with your horns all those that have become weak and diseased, till you have scattered them abroad,

²² Therefore will I rescue My flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

²³ And I will raise up over them one Shepherd and He shall feed them, even My Servant ^[a]David; He shall feed them and He shall be their Shepherd.^(A)

5 I warn and counsel the elders among you (the pastors and spiritual guides of the church) as a fellow elder and as an eyewitness [called to testify] of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a sharer in the glory (the honor and splendor) that is to be revealed (disclosed, unfolded):

² Tend (nurture, guard, guide, and fold) the flock of God that is [your responsibility], not by coercion or constraint, but willingly; not dishonorably motivated by the advantages and profits [belonging to the office], but eagerly and cheerfully;

³ Not domineering [as arrogant, dictatorial, and overbearing persons] over those in your charge, but being examples (patterns and models of Christian living) to the flock (the congregation).

⁴ And [then] when the Chief Shepherd is revealed, you will win the ^[a]conqueror’s crown of glory.

⁵ Likewise, you who are younger and of lesser rank, be subject to the elders (the ministers and spiritual guides of the church)—[giving them due respect and yielding to their counsel]. Clothe (apron) yourselves, all of you, with humility [as the garb of a servant, ^[b]so that its covering cannot possibly be stripped from you, with freedom from pride and arrogance] toward one another. For God sets Himself against the proud (the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful)—[and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them], but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble.^(A)