Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 52
For the music leader. A maskil[a] of David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, “David has gone to Ahimelech’s house.”
52 Hey, powerful person!
Why do you brag about evil?
God’s faithful love lasts all day long.
2 Your tongue devises destruction:
it’s like a sharpened razor, causing deception.
3 You love evil more than good;
you love lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
4 You love all destructive words;
you love the deceiving tongue.
5 But God will take you down permanently;
he will snatch you up,
tear you out of your tent,
and uproot you from the land of the living! Selah
6 The righteous will see and be in awe;
they will laugh at those people:
7 “Look at them! They didn’t make God their refuge.
Instead, they trusted in their own great wealth.
They sought refuge in it—to their own destruction!”
8 But I am like a green olive tree in God’s house;
I trust in God’s faithful love forever and always.
9 I will give thanks to you, God, forever,
because you have acted.
In the presence of your faithful people,
I will hope in your name because it’s so good.
Egypt is not Assyria
31 In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, the Lord’s word came to me: 2 Human one, say to Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, and his troops:
With whom do you compare in your greatness?
3 Consider Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon:
beautiful branches, dense shade, towering height;
indeed, its top went up between the clouds.
4 Waters nourished it; the deep raised it up,
because its streams flowed around the place where it was planted.
From there, water trickled down to all the other trees of the field.
5 And so it became higher than all the trees of the field.
Its branches became abundant; its boughs grew long.
Because of the plentiful water, it grew freely.
6 All the birds in the sky made nests in its branches;
all the beasts of the field gave birth under its boughs,
and in its shade, every great nation lived.
7 It became beautiful in its greatness and in its lush foliage,
because it took root in plentiful water.
8 No cedar was its equal in God’s garden.
The fir trees didn’t have anything like its branches,
and the plane trees had nothing like its boughs.
None of the trees in God’s garden could compare to it in its beauty.
9 As for its beauty—I made it so, with its abundant foliage.
All the trees of Eden envied it,
all that were in God’s garden.
10 So now the Lord God proclaims:
Consider the fate of those who tower high!
When it allowed its branches to reach up among the clouds,
it became arrogant.
11 So I handed it over
to the most powerful nation,
who continually acted treacherously against it.
I banished it!
12 Foreigners, the worst of the nations, cut it down
and left it to lie among the hills.
All its branches fell among the valleys,
and its boughs were broken off in the earth’s deep ravines.
All the earth’s peoples departed from its shade and abandoned it.
Final greeting
11 Look at the large letters I’m making with my own handwriting! 12 Whoever wants to look good by human standards will try to get you to be circumcised, but only so they won’t be harassed for the cross of Christ. 13 Those who are circumcised don’t observe the Law themselves, but they want you to be circumcised, so they can boast about your physical body.[a]
14 But as for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except for the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through him, and I have been crucified to the world. 15 Being circumcised or not being circumcised doesn’t mean anything. What matters is a new creation. 16 May peace and mercy be on whoever follows this rule and on God’s Israel.
17 From now on, no one should bother me because I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.
18 Brothers and sisters, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible