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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 38

Psalm 38^[a]

Prayer of a Sinner in Great Peril

¹A psalm of David. For remembrance.^[b]

²O Lord, do not punish me in your anger
    or chastise me in your wrath.
³For your arrows^[c] have pierced me deeply,
    and your hand has come down upon me.
⁴No portion of my body^[d] has been unscathed
    as a result of your anger;
my bones have become weak
    as a result of my sins.
⁵My iniquities tower far above my head;^[e]
    they are a burden too heavy to bear.
⁶My wounds are fetid and fester
    because of my folly.
⁷I am bowed down and bent over,
    as I spend each day in sorrow.
⁸My loins are filled with searing pain;
    no part of my body^[f] is unafflicted.
⁹I am numb and completely crushed,
    and I groan in anguish of heart.^[g]
¹⁰O Lord, all my longing is known to you,
    and my sighs are not hidden from you.
¹¹My heart throbs, and my strength is spent;
    even the light has faded from my eyes.
¹²My friends and companions stay away from my affliction,
    and my neighbors keep their distance.
¹³Those who seek my life set traps;
    those who wish me harm threaten violence
    and plot treachery all day long.^[h]
¹⁴^[i]But I am like a man who cannot hear,
    like one who cannot open his mouth.
¹⁵I am like one who hears nothing
    and has no answer to offer.
¹⁶I place my hope in you, O Lord;
    you, O Lord, my God, will answer for me.
¹⁷For I prayed, “Never let them gloat over me
    or exult should my foot slip.”
¹⁸I am at the point of exhaustion,
    and my grief is with me constantly.
¹⁹I acknowledge my iniquity,
    and I sincerely grieve for my sin.
²⁰^[j]Numerous and strong are my enemies without cause;
    many are those who hate me without good reason.^[k]
²¹Those who repay my good deeds with evil
    oppose me because I follow a path of righteousness.
²²Do not abandon me, O Lord;
    my God, do not remain far from me.
²³Come quickly to my aid,
    O Lord, my Savior.

Footnotes

Psalm 38:1 The psalmist of this third Penitential Psalm (seven in all: Pss 6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; 143) is a man prostrated beneath the weight of his sickness and the vilification heaped on him by others, a man marked by the chastisement of God. He utters a suppliant and monotone plaint that seems as interminable as his suffering. Before God, he is pitiable, abandoned, and betrayed. This new Job (Job 6:4; 19:13-21) does not rebel. He thinks of himself as a sinner who deserves his lot and he suffers in silence, leveling neither recriminations nor imprecations against his adversaries. Indeed, hope stirs secretly in him.
The complete abandonment to God that is expressed here is also found in the third Lamentation (Lam 3:26-29) and in the Songs of the Servant of the Lord (see Isa 53:7). The Christian Liturgy sees in this man of sorrows an image of the Christ who was silent during his Passion.
In praying this psalm, we should look to ourselves, scrutinizing our lives and our consciences with a penetrating and impartial honesty, the better to discern the place of sin therein and the better to realize that we are and remain sinners (see Rom 7:14-20; 1 Jn 1:8f). This will in no way prevent us from begging God not to chastise us in his wrath but to save us as soon as possible from our afflictions and our foes.
Psalm 38:1 For remembrance: the meaning is “For the memorial sacrifice” or “portion” (see Lev 2:2, 9, 16; 5:12; Isa 66:3); it occurs elsewhere only in Ps 70; an alternative translation is: “A petition.”
Psalm 38:3 Arrows: i.e., the trials God has sent him (see Deut 32:23; Job 6:4; 34:6; Lam 3:12; Ezek 5:16).
Psalm 38:4 Body: literally, “flesh.” Bones: see note on Ps 34:20-21.
Psalm 38:5 My iniquities tower far above my head: his guilt has resulted in both physical and psychological suffering.
Psalm 38:8 Body: literally, “flesh.”
Psalm 38:9 Heart: see note on Ps 4:8.
Psalm 38:13 This passage recalls the fourth Song of the Servant (Isa 53:4, 7; see also Pss 31:11; 35:20; 37:32; 88:9; Job 12:4f; 19:13f).
Psalm 38:14 Like a man deaf and dumb, the psalmist does not reply to those who slander him; he waits for the Lord to vindicate his cause.
Psalm 38:20 Passage close to Pss 35:11; 109:3-5. Some Greek manuscripts and many versions add: “They have rejected me, the loved one, like some hideous corpse” (see Isa 14:19 Greek). This allusion to the crucified Christ is made even more explicit in the Coptic version by the words: “They have nailed my flesh.”
Psalm 38:20 Hate me without good reason: although the psalmist acknowledges that he sinned against the Lord, he protests his innocence of wrongdoing against his enemies (see note on Ps 35:19).

Micah 4:1-7

The Expectation of Renewal^[a]

Chapter 4

We Shall Go to the Mountain of God

¹In days to come,
    the mountain of the Lord’s house
will be established as the highest of the mountains,
    towering above other hills.
Peoples will stream toward it;
²    many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
so that he may teach us his ways
    and we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion will instruction go forth,
    and from Jerusalem the word of the Lord.
³He will judge between many peoples
    and serve as an arbiter,
    between mighty and distant nations.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up the sword against nation,
    nor will they ever again be trained for war.
⁴Each man will sit under his own vine
    or under his own fig tree
with no cause for alarm,
    for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
⁵For all the peoples go forth,
    each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord, our God,
    forever and ever.

Gathering Up the Dispersed Flock

⁶On that day, says the Lord,
    I will gather the lame;
I will assemble those who have been driven away
    and those whom I have afflicted.
⁷I will make the lame into a remnant,
    and turn into a strong nation those who were cast off.
The Lord will reign over them on Mount Zion
    now and forevermore.

2 Corinthians 1:1-11

Address

Chapter 1

Greeting to the Church. ¹Paul, an apostle^[a] of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the Church of God in Corinth, and to all the saints throughout Achaia: ²grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sufferings and Consolation.^[b] ³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy and the God of all consolation.^[c] ⁴He consoles us in all our afflictions and thereby enables us to console others in their tribulations, offering them the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.

⁵For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so too, through Christ, do we receive our consolation. ⁶If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation. If we are being consoled, it is to help us to console you and give you the patience and the strength to endure the same sufferings that we endure. ⁷Our hope for you is unshaken, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the consolations.

⁸Brethren, we do not want you to be unaware of the hardships we experienced^[d] in Asia. The burden we endured was far too heavy for us to bear, to such an extent that we even despaired of life itself. ⁹Indeed, in our hearts we felt that we were under a sentence of death. This was so that we not put our trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.

¹⁰He delivered us from this deadly peril, and he will continue to so deliver us. He on whom we have set our hopes will deliver us again, ¹¹as you assist us with your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many to God on our behalf for the blessing granted to us through the prayers of so many.

Footnotes

2 Corinthians 1:1 Apostle: a person specially commissioned by Christ (see notes on Mk 6:30; 1 Cor 1:1-9; Heb 3:1). Timothy: a fellow worker of Paul (see Acts 18:5) and his companion on the second and third missionary journeys. Brother: a fellow believer, a brother in Christ (see Acts 9:17; Heb 2:11). Church of God in Corinth: the community of believers at Corinth, the local representative of the universal Church. “Church of God” is an expression used only by Paul and solely in Acts 20:28, 1 Cor 1:2, and here. It corresponds to the Old Testament expression “assembly (or community) of the Lord” (see Deut 23:2; see also Num 16:3; 20:4; 1 Chr 28:8). Saints: another term for God’s people, those who have been set apart as holy to the Lord (see note on Rom 1:7). Achaia: Greece as distinct from Macedonia. Although the Letter was written specifically for the situation in Corinth, it was also intended for Christians elsewhere in Greece. Copies would doubtless be made and circulated to them.
2 Corinthians 1:3 The Gospel is the power of liberation not only in time of exaltation when the gifts of the Spirit carry the whole community along but also in the most difficult trials of an apostle’s life. Paul has known sickness and the fear of an approaching death, he has suffered persecution, and he has experienced misunderstanding and rejection at the hands of his own communities. Discouraged and weighed down, he discovers the weakness of an apostle, whose evidence is inscribed forever in his life. However, another certitude—one even more profound—imposes itself upon him: the joy of being in the hand of the Lord and imitating Jesus himself!
The word “consolation” occurs in some form ten times in these lines, not as a facile formula but as a term that expresses inner freedom, strength renewed, the reversal of a situation, the experience of being blessed by God who triumphs over evil and death. In addition, the solidarity of Christians is deepened in trials and in joy, for they all belong to the one Body of Christ. Paul’s safety serves as a source of comfort for his followers, and their prayer is a means of sustenance for him.
2 Corinthians 1:3 Consolation: i.e., comfort and encouragement.
2 Corinthians 1:8 We experienced: throughout the Letter, Paul uses the editorial plural (we, us, our, ourselves). These terms should be taken as referring to Paul alone—except where the context demonstrates otherwise. Asia: Asia Minor, with its capital at Ephesus, which was a Roman province.

New Catholic Bible (NCB)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 38[a]

Prayer of a Sinner in Great Peril

Footnotes

The Expectation of Renewal[a]

Chapter 4

We Shall Go to the Mountain of God

Gathering Up the Dispersed Flock

Footnotes

Address

Chapter 1

Footnotes

Psalm 38^[a]

The Expectation of Renewal^[a]