Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

David wrote this song when he made the Philistine king think that he was crazy. He wanted the king to send him away.^[a]

God is great!^[b]

⁵ The Lord God Almighty will do this! When he touches the earth, it shakes. Everyone who lives there weeps. The ground rises up, like the water of the Nile river in Egypt. Then it goes down again, like the river. ⁶ The Lord builds his palace up into heaven, with its foundation on the earth. He takes up the water from the sea, and he pours it out on the earth as rain. The Lord is his name.

⁷ The Lord says, ‘You Israelite people, do not think that you are more important to me than the people of Ethiopia. It is true that I led you safely out of Egypt. But I also brought the Philistines from Crete. And I brought the Aramean people from Kir. ⁸ I, the Lord God, am carefully watching you Israelites. I see that you are a wicked nation, so I will remove you from the earth. But I will not completely destroy all the descendants of Jacob.’ That is what the Lord says.

⁹ ‘Listen to me! I will cause trouble to come to Israel's family, as they live among other nations. It will be like a person who shakes a sieve to remove dirt from grain. ¹⁰ Those among my people who do bad things will die. They say, “God will not send trouble to us. Nothing bad will happen to us.” But their enemies will kill those bad people in war.’

The Israelites will be strong again

¹¹ The Lord says, ‘When that time comes, I will make David's kingdom strong again. It has become like a broken hut, but I will repair it. I will cause it to become as good and strong as it was when king David ruled. ¹² You Israelites will fight the Edomites who still remain. You will win against them and the other nations that once belonged to me.’

That is what the Lord says, and he will do it.

¹³ The Lord says, ‘The time will come when food will grow very well in your fields. People will need to work quickly to cut down all their crops before they plough the ground to plant again. Lots of grapes will grow on your vines. People will work quickly to make wine from the grapes before they plant new vines. So much juice will pour out of the grapes that it will run down the hills!

¹⁴ I will bring the people of Israel, my people, back to their own land. Enemies destroyed their cities, but now my people will build them again. They will live safely in them. My people will plant vines. They will drink wine from their grapes. They will eat the fruit from trees that they have planted in their gardens. ¹⁵ And I will plant my people in their own land. That is the land that I have given to them, and nobody will ever pull them out of that land.’

That is what the Lord your God says.

¹³ My Christian friends, I do not think that I have reached that place yet. But this is what I do: I do not think about past things that have already happened. Instead, I try hard to reach the things that are in front of me. ¹⁴ I am like a runner who wants to reach the end of the race. I run straight towards that place, so that I can win God's gift. Because I belong to Christ Jesus, God has called me to live with him in heaven. That is God's gift to me at the end of the race.

¹⁵ All of us should agree to live like that, if we properly understand God's message. If you think differently about these things, God will show you clearly what is right. ¹⁶ But we should continue to live in the way that we already know is right.

¹⁷ My Christian friends, you should try to live in the way that I do. Carefully watch other people who live like that. We have shown you what is right. ¹⁸ Many people live in a way that shows they do not agree with God's message. I have told you about these people many times before. And now I am crying when I tell you about them. I am very sad, because they speak against Christ's death on the cross. ¹⁹ In the end, God will destroy them. Their stomach is what they worship. They are proud of things that should make them ashamed. Their thoughts are full of things that belong to this world. ²⁰ But as for us, the home where we belong is in heaven. We are waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ to come from there. He is the one who will come from heaven and save us. ²¹ He will change these weak bodies that we have now on this earth. He will make them become strong and beautiful, like his own body that he has in heaven. Christ will use his great power to do this. That is the power that he uses to rule over everything.

How Christians should live

4 My dear Christian friends, I love you very much. I want very much to see you again. You make me very happy. You show that my work among you had good results. Please continue to live in a way that pleases the Lord. This is what I have taught you to do.