Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 38
A Penitent Sufferer’s Plea for Healing
A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.
1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.(A)
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.(B)
3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.(C)
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.(D)
5 My wounds grow foul and fester
because of my foolishness;(E)
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all day long I go around mourning.(F)
7 For my loins are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.(G)
8 I am utterly spent and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.(H)
9 O Lord, all my longing is known to you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.(I)
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me;
as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction,
and my neighbors stand far off.(J)
12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;
those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin
and meditate on treachery all day long.(K)
13 But I am like the deaf; I do not hear;
like the mute, who cannot speak.(L)
14 Truly, I am like one who does not hear
and in whose mouth is no retort.
15 But it is for you, O Lord, that I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.(M)
16 For I pray, “Only do not let them rejoice over me,
those who boast against me when my foot slips.”(N)
Peace and Security through Obedience
4 In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s temple
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,(A)
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 that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.(B)
3 He shall judge between many peoples
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
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;(C)
4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid,
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.(D)
5 For all the peoples walk,
each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
forever and ever.(E)
Restoration Promised after Exile
Salutation
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:(A)
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.(B)
Paul’s Thanksgiving after Affliction
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation,(C) 4 who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.(D) 6 If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.
8 We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself.(E) 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us;[a] on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again,(F) 11 as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many may give thanks on our[b] behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.(G)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.