Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 15

A Psalm of David.

¹ Lord, who shall dwell [temporarily] in Your tabernacle? Who shall dwell [permanently] on Your holy hill?

² He who walks and lives uprightly and blamelessly, who works rightness and justice and speaks and thinks the truth in his heart,

³ He who does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his friend, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor;

⁴ In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he who honors those who fear the Lord (who revere and worship Him); who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

⁵ [He who] does not put out his money for ^[a]interest [to one of his own people] and who will not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.^(A)

32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, [they] gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, Up, make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

² So Aaron replied, Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives, your sons, and daughters, and bring them to me.

³ So all the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.

⁴ And he received the gold at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it a molten calf; and they said, These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!

⁵ And when Aaron saw the molten calf, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.

⁶ And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

⁷ The Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves;

⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, These are your gods, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt!

⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people;

¹⁰ Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and that I may destroy them; but I will make of you a great nation.

¹¹ But Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why does Your wrath blaze hot against Your people, whom You have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

¹² Why should the Egyptians say, For evil He brought them forth, to slay them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and change Your mind concerning this evil against Your people.

¹³ [Earnestly] remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self and said to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned from the evil which He had thought to do to His people.

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered abroad [among the Gentiles in the dispersion]: Greetings (^[a]rejoice)!

² Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.

³ Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.

⁴ But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.

⁵ If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of ^[b]the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.

⁶ Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind.

⁷ For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything [he asks for] from the Lord,

⁸ [For being as he is] a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, decides].