Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Call to Yahweh in Distress
A psalm of David at his fleeing from the presence of Absalom, his son.[a]
3 Yahweh, how many are my enemies;
many are rising against me.
2 Many are saying about my soul,
“There is no deliverance for him from[b] God. Selah[c]
3 But[d] you, Yahweh, are a shield around me,
my glory and the one who lifts up my head.
4 With my voice I call to Yahweh
and he answers me from his holy hill.[e] Selah
5 I lay down and slept;
I woke up because Yahweh sustains me.
6 I am not afraid of the ten thousands of people
who all around have set themselves against me.
7 Rise up, O Yahweh; deliver me, O my God;
for you strike all my enemies on the cheek.
The teeth of the wicked you break.
8 To Yahweh belongs deliverance;
may your blessing be over your people. Selah
God’s Answer to Habakkuk
5 “Look among the nations and see;
be astonished and astounded.
For a work is about to be done in your days
that you will not believe if it is told.
6 For look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,
the bitter and impetuous nation,
the one who walks through the spacious places of earth
to take possession of dwellings not belonging to it.[a]
7 They[b] are dreadful and awesome;
their[c] justice and their[d] dignity proceed from themselves.[e]
8 Their[f] horses are more swift than leopards;
they are more menacing than wolves at dusk.
Their[g] horsemen gallop; their[h] horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle that is swift to devour.
9 All of them[i] come for violence,
their faces pressing forward.
They gather captives like the sand.
10 And they themselves scoff at kings
and rulers are a joke to them.
They laugh at every fortification,
and they heap up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep like the wind and pass on;
they become guilty, whose might is their[j] god!”
Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
12 Are you not from of old,
O Yahweh my God, my Holy One?
You[k] shall not die.
O Yahweh, you have marked them[l] for judgment;
O Rock, you have established them[m] for reproof.
13 Your eyes are too pure to see evil,
and you are not able to look at wrongdoing.[n]
Why do you look at the treacherous?
Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up
someone more righteous than him?
14 You make humankind like fish of the sea,
like crawling creatures that have no ruler among them.
15 He brings up all of them with a fishhook;
he drags them up with a fishnet;
he gathers them in his dragnet.
Therefore, he rejoices and exults.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his fishnet
and makes offerings to his dragnet,
for by them he makes a good living[o]
and his food is rich.
17 Will he therefore empty his fishnet
and continually kill nations without showing mercy?
Trials, Testing, and Faith
2 Consider it all joy, my brothers, whenever you encounter various trials, 3 because you[a] know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask for it from God, who gives to all without reservation and not reproaching, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask for it in faith, without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed about. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
9 Now let the brother of humble circumstances boast in his high position, 10 but the rich person in his humiliation, because he will pass away like a flower of the grass. 11 For the sun rises with its burning heat and dries up the grass, and its flower falls off, and the beauty of its appearance is lost. So also the rich person in his pursuits[b] will wither away.
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