Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

52 Written by David to protest against his enemy Doeg (1 Samuel 22), who later slaughtered eighty-five priests and their families.

You call yourself a hero, do you? You boast about this evil deed of yours against God’s people. ² You are sharp as a tack in plotting your evil tricks. ³ How you love wickedness—far more than good! And lying more than truth! ⁴ You love to slander—you love to say anything that will do harm, O man with the lying tongue.

⁵ But God will strike you down, pull you from your home, and drag you away from the land of the living. ⁶ The followers of God will see it happen. They will watch in awe. Then they will laugh and say, ⁷ “See what happens to those who despise God and trust in their wealth, and become ever more bold in their wickedness.”^[a]

⁸ But I am like a sheltered olive tree protected by the Lord himself. I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever. ⁹ O Lord, I will praise you forever and ever for your punishment.^[b] And I will wait for your mercies—for everyone knows what a merciful God you are.

31 In mid-May of the eleventh year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity,^[a] this message came to me from the Lord:

^2-3 “Son of dust, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his people: ‘You are as Assyria was—a great and mighty nation—like a cedar of Lebanon, full of thick branches and forest shade, with its head high up among the clouds. ⁴ Its roots went deep into the moist earth. It grew luxuriantly and gave streamlets of water to all the trees around. ⁵ It towered above all the other trees. It prospered and grew long thick branches because of all the water at its roots. ⁶ The birds nested in its branches, and in its shade the flocks and herds gave birth to young. All the great nations of the world lived beneath its shadow. ⁷ It was strong and beautiful, for its roots went deep to water. ⁸ This tree was taller than any other in the garden of God; no cypress had branches equal to it; none had boughs to compare; none equaled it in beauty. ⁹ Because of the magnificence that I gave it, it was the envy of all the other trees of Eden.’

¹⁰ “But Egypt^[b] has become proud and arrogant,” the Lord God says. “Therefore because she has set herself so high above the others, reaching to the clouds, ¹¹ I will deliver her into the hands of a mighty nation, to destroy her as her wickedness deserves. I, myself, will cut her down. ¹² A foreign army (from Babylon)—the terror of the nations—will invade her land and cut her down and leave her fallen on the ground. Her branches will be scattered across the mountains and valleys and rivers of the land. All those who live beneath her shade will go away and leave her lying there.

¹¹ I will write these closing words in my own handwriting. See how large I have to make the letters! ¹² Those teachers of yours who are trying to convince you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason: so that they can be popular and avoid the persecution they would get if they admitted that the cross of Christ alone can save. ¹³ And even those teachers who submit to circumcision don’t try to keep the other Jewish laws; but they want you to be circumcised in order that they can boast that you are their disciples.

¹⁴ As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in all the attractive things of the world was killed long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead. ¹⁵ It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not; what counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people.

¹⁶ May God’s mercy and peace be upon all of you who live by this principle and upon those everywhere who are really God’s own.

¹⁷ From now on please don’t argue with me about these things, for I carry on my body the scars of the whippings and wounds from Jesus’ enemies that mark me as his slave.

¹⁸ Dear brothers, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Sincerely, Paul