Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

David wrote this psalm when he was in the Judah wilderness.

A morning song^[a]

⁷ The Lord has promised this: ‘You proud descendants of Jacob, I will never forget the wrong things that you have done. ⁸ The whole country will shake because of your sins. Everyone who lives there will weep. The ground will rise up, like the floods of the Nile river in Egypt. Then it will go down again, like the water of the Nile.’

⁹ The Lord God says, ‘At that time, I will make the sun go down at noon. I will make the earth become dark in the daytime. ¹⁰ Your parties will become funerals. You will not sing happy songs but you will weep. You will wear rough clothes and you will cut off all your hair. You will be as sad as if your only son had died. That will be a very bad day for you.’

¹¹ The Lord God says, ‘Listen to me! At that time, I will cause you to be very hungry. It will not be because you need food and water. Instead, everyone in the land will want to hear a message from me. ¹² People will travel everywhere in the country, north and south, east and west. They will want to hear a message from the Lord, but there will be nothing for them to hear.

¹³ At that time, your beautiful young women and your young men will become very thirsty. They will be weak and tired. ¹⁴ They worship Samaria's idols. They use the names of those false gods to make promises. They say, “In the name of the god of Dan,” or “In the name of the god of Beersheba.” Those people will fall down and they will never get up again.’

²⁰ My Christian friends, do not continue to think like children think. Instead, think properly like men and women should think. The only way you should be like babies is to keep away from evil things. ²¹ This is written in the Bible:

²² So the gift to speak in different languages is like a sign. It shows God's power to people who do not believe in him. It is not a sign to help believers. But the gift to speak clear messages from God shows his power to believers. It is not a sign for those people who do not believe.

²³ Think about what happens when the whole church meets together. Perhaps some people come in who do not believe in God. Or perhaps they have not learned much about God. If all of you are speaking in strange languages, those visitors would not understand. They would say that you are all crazy! ²⁴ But if all of you are speaking clear messages from God, a visitor will understand you. He may not believe in God. He may not have learned much about God. But he will hear God's message. He will understand that he has done wrong things. He will know that God will judge him. He will learn this from what all of you are saying. ²⁵ The visitor's secret thoughts will become clear. As a result, he will bend down to the ground and he will worship God. He will say, ‘God is really here among you!’