Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 40

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ I waited patiently and expectantly for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.

² He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings.

³ And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord.^(A)

⁴ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who makes the Lord his refuge and trust, and turns not to the proud or to followers of false gods.

⁵ Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.

⁶ Sacrifice and offering You do not desire, nor have You delight in them; You have given me the capacity to hear and obey [Your law, a more valuable service than] burnt offerings and sin offerings [which] You do not require.

⁷ Then said I, Behold, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me;

⁸ I delight to do Your will, O my God; yes, Your law is within my heart.^(B)

14 O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled and fallen, [visited by calamity] due to your iniquity.

² Take with you words and return to the Lord. Say to Him, Take away all our iniquity; accept what is good and receive us graciously; so will we render [our thanks] as bullocks [to be sacrificed] and pay the confession of our lips.^(A)

³ Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands [idols], You are our gods. For in You [O Lord] the fatherless find love, pity, and mercy.

⁴ I will heal their faithlessness; I will love them freely, for My anger is turned away from [Israel].

⁵ I will be like the dew and the night mist to Israel; he shall grow and blossom like the lily and cast forth his roots like [the sturdy evergreens of] Lebanon.

⁶ His suckers and shoots shall spread, and his beauty shall be like the olive tree and his fragrance like [the cedars and aromatic shrubs of] Lebanon.

⁷ They that dwell under his shade shall return; they shall revive like the grain and blossom like the vine; the scent of it shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

⁸ Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have answered [him] and will regard and watch over him; I am like a green fir or cypress tree; with Me is the fruit found [which is to nourish you].

⁹ Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of the Lord are right and the [uncompromisingly] just shall walk in them, but transgressors shall stumble and fall in them.^(B)

12 At that ^[a]particular time Jesus went through the fields of standing grain on the Sabbath; and His disciples were hungry, and they began to pick off the spikes of grain and to eat.^(A)

² And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, See there! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful and not permitted on the Sabbath.

³ He said to them, Have you not even read what David did when he was hungry, and those who accompanied him—^(B)

⁴ How he went into the house of God and ate the loaves of the showbread—which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for the men who accompanied him, but for the priests only?

⁵ Or have you never read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple violate the sanctity of the Sabbath [breaking it] and yet are guiltless?^(C)

⁶ But I tell you, Something greater and ^[b]more exalted and more majestic than the temple is here!

⁷ And if you had only known what this saying means, I desire mercy [readiness to help, to spare, to forgive] rather than sacrifice and sacrificial victims, you would not have condemned the guiltless.^(D)

⁸ For the Son of Man is Lord [even] of the Sabbath.