Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 38

A Psalm of David; to bring to remembrance and make memorial.

¹ O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath, neither chasten me in Your hot displeasure.

² For Your arrows have sunk into me and stick fast, and Your hand has come down upon me and pressed me sorely.

³ There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation; neither is there any health or rest in my bones because of my sin.

⁴ For my iniquities have gone over my head [like waves of a flood]; as a heavy burden they weigh too much for me.

⁵ My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness.

⁶ I am bent and bowed down greatly; I go about mourning all the day long.

⁷ For my loins are filled with burning; and there is no soundness in my flesh.

⁸ I am faint and sorely bruised [deadly cold and quite worn out]; I groan by reason of the disquiet and moaning of my heart.

⁹ Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You.

¹⁰ My heart throbs, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes, it also is gone from me.

¹¹ My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague; and my neighbors and my near ones stand afar off.^(A)

¹² They also that seek and demand my life lay snares for me, and they that seek and require my hurt speak crafty and mischievous things; they meditate treachery and deceit all the day long.

¹³ But I, like a deaf man, hear not; and I am like a dumb man who opens not his mouth.

¹⁴ Yes, I have become like a man who hears not, in whose mouth are no arguments or replies.

¹⁵ For in You, O Lord, do I hope; You will answer, O Lord my God.

¹⁶ For I pray, Let them not rejoice over me, who when my foot slips boast against me.

¹⁷ For I am ready to halt and fall; my pain and sorrow are continually before me.

¹⁸ For I do confess my guilt and iniquity; I am filled with sorrow for my sin.^(B)

¹⁹ But my enemies are vigorous and strong, and those who hate me wrongfully are multiplied.

²⁰ They also that render evil for good are adversaries to me, because I follow the thing that is good.

²¹ Forsake me not, O Lord; O my God, be not far from me.

²² Make haste to help me, O Lord, my Salvation.

4 But in the latter days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains; and it shall be exalted above the hills, and peoples shall flow to it.

² And many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways, and we may walk in His paths. For the law shall go forth out of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

³ And He shall judge between many peoples and shall decide for strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.^(A)

⁴ But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken it.^(B)

⁵ For all the peoples [now] walk every man in the name of his god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

⁶ In that day, says the Lord, I will assemble the lame, and I will gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted.

⁷ And I will make the lame a remnant, and those who were cast off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forever.

1 Paul, an apostle (a special messenger) of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy [our] brother, to the church (assembly) of God which is at Corinth, and to all the saints (the people of God) throughout Achaia (most of Greece):

² Grace (favor and spiritual blessing) to you and [heart] peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement),

⁴ Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God.

⁵ For just as Christ’s [^[a]own] sufferings fall to our lot ^[b][as they overflow upon His disciples, and we share and experience them] abundantly, so through Christ comfort (consolation and encouragement) is also [shared and experienced] abundantly by us.

⁶ But if we are troubled (afflicted and distressed), it is for your comfort (consolation and encouragement) and [for your] salvation; and if we are comforted (consoled and encouraged), it is for your comfort (consolation and encouragement), which works [in you] when you patiently endure the same evils (misfortunes and calamities) that we also suffer and undergo.

⁷ And our hope for you [our joyful and confident expectation of good for you] is ever unwavering (assured and unshaken); for we know that just as you share and are partners in [our] sufferings and calamities, you also share and are partners in [our] comfort (consolation and encouragement).

⁸ For we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about the affliction and oppressing distress which befell us in [the province of] Asia, how we were so utterly and unbearably weighed down and crushed that we despaired even of life [itself].

⁹ Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead.

¹⁰ [For it is He] Who rescued and saved us from such a perilous death, and He will still rescue and save us; in and on Him we have set our hope (our joyful and confident expectation) that He will again deliver us [from danger and destruction and ^[c]draw us to Himself],

¹¹ While you also cooperate by your prayers for us [helping and laboring together with us]. Thus [the lips of] many persons [turned toward God will eventually] give thanks on our behalf for the grace (the blessing of deliverance) granted us at the request of the many who have prayed.