Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 41

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is he who considers the weak and the poor; the Lord will deliver him in the time of evil and trouble.

² The Lord will protect him and keep him alive; he shall be called blessed in the land; and You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies.

³ The Lord will sustain, refresh, and strengthen him on his bed of languishing; all his bed You [O Lord] will turn, change, and transform in his illness.

⁴ I said, Lord, be merciful and gracious to me; heal my inner self, for I have sinned against You.

⁵ My enemies speak evil of me, [saying], When will he die and his name perish?

⁶ And when one comes to see me, he speaks falsehood and empty words, while his heart gathers mischievous gossip [against me]; when he goes away, he tells it abroad.

⁷ All who hate me whisper together about me; against me do they devise my hurt [imagining the worst for me].

⁸ An evil disease, say they, is poured out upon him and cleaves fast to him; and now that he is bedfast, he will not rise up again.

⁹ Even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted (relied on and was confident), who ate of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.^(A)

¹⁰ But You, O Lord, be merciful and gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.

¹¹ By this I know that You favor and delight in me, because my enemy does not triumph over me.

¹² And as for me, You have upheld me in my integrity and set me in Your presence forever.

¹³ Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting and to everlasting [from this age to the next, and forever]! Amen and Amen (so be it).

38 In those days King Hezekiah of Judah became ill and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him and said, Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.^(A)

² Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord

³ And said, Remember [earnestly] now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in faithfulness and in truth, with a whole heart [absolutely devoted to You], and have done what is good in Your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying,

⁵ Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will ^[a]add to your life fifteen years.

⁶ And I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city [Jerusalem].

⁷ And this will be the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken:

⁸ Behold, I will turn the shadow [denoting the time of day] on the steps or degrees, which has gone down on the steps or sundial of Ahaz, backward ten steps or degrees. And the sunlight turned back ten steps on the steps on which it had gone down.

⁷ You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline?

⁸ Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all [of God’s children] share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons [at all].^(A)

⁹ Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded [to them] and respected [them for training us]. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so [truly] live?

¹⁰ For [our earthly fathers] disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them; but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness.

¹¹ For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness—in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].

¹² So then, brace up and reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakened and drooping hands and strengthen your feeble and palsied and tottering knees,^(B)

¹³ And cut through and make firm and plain and smooth, straight paths for your feet [yes, make them safe and upright and happy paths that go in the right direction], so that the lame and halting [limbs] may not be put out of joint, but rather may be cured.