Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
David wrote this song to ask God not to forget him.
Lord, please remember me[a]
38 Lord, when you are angry,
please do not punish me.
2 You have shot your arrows deep into me.
Your hand has pushed me down to the ground.[b]
3 Your punishment has made my whole body ill.
My health has gone, because of my sin.
4 My sin is too much for me!
It is like a heavy weight,
that I cannot carry.
5 My wounds make a bad smell,
and they get worse.
This is because I have done stupid things.
6 My body is bent down to the ground.
Every day I weep because I am so sad.
7 My body is hot with fever.[c]
I am very ill.
8 The pain has made me tired and weak.
I am so upset that I cry aloud.
9 My Lord, you already know what I want most.
You hear me when I cry with pain.
10 My heart beats very fast,
and my strength is leaving me.
Even my eyes can no longer see properly.
11 My family and my friends stay away from me,
because of my illness.
They do not come near to me.
12 My enemies prepare traps,
because they want to kill me.
They talk about ways to destroy me.
They want to hurt me,
so they talk about that all through the day.
13 But I am like a deaf man who hears nothing.
I am like a dumb man who says nothing.
14 So I live like a man who cannot hear what people say.
I refuse to argue against them.
15 Yes, Lord, I wait for you to help me!
I believe that you will answer me, my Lord and my God.
16 I have prayed that my enemies will not laugh at me.
If I slip and fall down,
they will be very happy!
17 I will soon fall down to the ground.
I have nothing but pain all the time.
18 But I agree that I have done wrong things.
I am sorry about my sins.
19 I have many enemies and they are strong.
They have no reason to hate me.
20 When I do good things,
they do evil things to me in return!
I try to do what is right,
but they turn against me.
21 Lord, please do not leave me alone.
Do not stay far away from me, my God!
22 My Lord, you are the one who can save me,
so come quickly to help me!
God's mountain
4 In the last days,
the mountain where the Lord's house is will be the highest mountain.
It will be the most important of all the mountains.
It will be higher than the hills,
and people from many countries will go to it.
2 Many people will speak about it.
‘Come! We will go up to the Lord's mountain,’ they will say.
‘We will go to the Lord's house because he is the God of Jacob's people.
He will teach us what he wants us to do.
He will show us the right way; so then we will be able to obey him.
The Lord will speak his rules from Zion.
He will send out his message from Jerusalem.’
3 He will judge between the people of many nations
When they argue together, he will decide who is right.
He will cause strong nations everywhere to stop fighting each other.
They fight with swords and spears.[a]
But at that time, they will make their swords into ploughs.
They will make their spears into knives to cut their vines.
Nations will no longer need weapons to fight each other.
They will never prepare to fight wars again.
4 Everyone will sit under his own vine and his own fig tree.[b]
Nobody will make them afraid any longer.[c]
The Lord Almighty has promised this.
5 People from other countries may be the servants of other gods.
But we will be servants of the Lord our God.
We will obey him always.
God will make Israel and Jerusalem strong again
6 The Lord speaks again:
‘At that time I will bring together the people who cannot walk well.
I will bring back the people that I sent away.
I caused trouble for those people,
but I will bring them back together.
7 I will make a new beginning with those people who cannot walk well.
Together with some of those people that I sent far away,
I will make them my own special people.
They will be strong,
and I will rule over them from Mount Zion.
I will be their king from that time and always.
Paul says ‘Hello’
1 This letter is from me, Paul. God chose me to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. Our Christian friend Timothy is here with me as I write.
I am sending this letter to you, the people of the church in Corinth city. I am sending it also to all of God's people who live in other places in Achaia.
2 I pray that God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to help you. I pray that they will give you peace in your minds.
God himself comforts us
3 We thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he is so good to us. As our Father, he is very kind to us. He is our God who comforts us in every way. 4 Whenever we have trouble, he comforts us. Because of that, we ourselves can comfort other people. When they have any kind of trouble, we can comfort them, in the same way that God has comforted us. 5 Christ himself received much pain, and God comforted him. As Christ's servants, we also receive the same kind of pain. But, God also comforts us very much, because we belong to Christ.
6 So, when we receive trouble, the result is that we can comfort you. And then also, God saves you. When God comforts us, that helps us to comfort you too. As a result, when you receive the same kinds of trouble that we receive, you learn to be patient and strong. 7 So we continue to be sure that you will remain strong. You receive many troubles, as we do too. But we know that God will also comfort you, as he comforts us.
8 Our Christian friends, we want you to know about the trouble that we had in Asia. Those troubles were very painful. We ourselves were not strong enough to continue. We even thought that we would die. 9 We ourselves thought that we would certainly die. We knew that we could not trust our own strength. We had to trust God. He is the one who causes dead people to rise up to new life. So we could trust him to make us strong. 10 We nearly died, but God saved us from that great danger. We know that we can continue to trust him. He will save us from any future danger. 11 We also know that you continue to help us as you pray for us. As many people pray for us, they will thank God when he answers their prayers. They will see that God is very kind to us, and they will thank him.
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