Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

138 Lord, with all my heart I thank you. I will sing your praises before the armies of angels.^{[a] 2} I face your Temple as I worship, giving thanks to you for all your loving-kindness and your faithfulness, for your promises are backed by all the honor of your name.^{[b] 3} When I pray, you answer me and encourage me by giving me the strength I need.

⁴ Every king in all the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord, for all of them shall hear your voice. ⁵ Yes, they shall sing about Jehovah’s glorious ways, for his glory is very great. ⁶ Yet though he is so great, he respects the humble, but proud men must keep their distance. ⁷ Though I am surrounded by troubles, you will bring me safely through them. You will clench your fist against my angry enemies! Your power will save me. ⁸ The Lord will work out his plans for my life—for your loving-kindness, Lord, continues forever. Don’t abandon me—for you made me.

¹⁵ The Lord God says: “When she fell, I made the oceans mourn for her and restrained their tides.^[a] I clothed Lebanon in black and caused the trees of Lebanon to weep. ¹⁶ I made the nations shake with fear at the sound of her fall, for I threw her down to hell with all the others like her. And all the other proud trees of Eden, the choicest and the best of Lebanon, the ones whose roots went deep into the water, are comforted to find her there with them in hell. ¹⁷ Her allies, too, are all destroyed and perish with her. They went down with her to the netherworld—those nations that had lived beneath her shade.

¹⁸ “O Egypt, you are great and glorious among the trees of Eden—the nations of the world. And you will be brought down to the pit of hell with all these other nations. You will be among the nations you despise, killed by the sword. This is the fate of Pharaoh and all his teeming masses,” says the Lord.

¹² Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare say that I am as wonderful as these other men who tell you how good they are! Their trouble is that they are only comparing themselves with each other and measuring themselves against their own little ideas. What stupidity!

¹³ But we will not boast of authority we do not have. Our goal is to measure up to God’s plan for us, and this plan includes our working there with you. ¹⁴ We are not going too far when we claim authority over you, for we were the first to come to you with the Good News concerning Christ. ¹⁵ It is not as though we were trying to claim credit for the work someone else has done among you. Instead, we hope that your faith will grow and that, still within the limits set for us, our work among you will be greatly enlarged.

¹⁶ After that, we will be able to preach the Good News to other cities that are far beyond you, where no one else is working; then there will be no question about being in someone else’s field. ¹⁷ As the Scriptures say, “If anyone is going to boast, let him boast about what the Lord has done and not about himself.” ¹⁸ When someone boasts about himself and how well he has done, it doesn’t count for much. But when the Lord commends him, that’s different!