Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Let Your Glory Be over All the Earth

To the choirmaster: according to ^(A)Do Not Destroy. A ^(B)Miktam^[a] of David, when he fled from Saul, in ^(C)the cave.

² And there was a man in ^(A)Maon whose business was in ^(B)Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. ^(C)He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife was Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; ^(D)he was a Calebite. ⁴ David heard in the wilderness that Nabal ^(E)was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. ⁶ And thus you shall greet him: ^(F)‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. ⁷ I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, ^(G)and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favour in your eyes, for we come ^(H)on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

⁹ When David's young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited. ¹⁰ And Nabal answered David's servants, ^(I)“Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? ^(J)There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. ¹¹ Shall I take ^(K)my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to ^(L)men who come from I do not know where?” ¹² So David's young men turned away and came back and told him all this. ¹³ And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And ^(M)about four hundred men went up after David, ^(N)while two hundred ^(O)remained with the baggage.

¹⁴ But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. ¹⁵ Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, ^(P)and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. ¹⁶ They were ^(Q)a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. ¹⁷ Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, ^(R)for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such ^(S)a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”

¹⁸ Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs^[a] of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys. ¹⁹ And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. ²⁰ And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down towards her, and she met them. ²¹ Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, ^(T)so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has ^(U)returned me evil for good. ^22 (V)God do so to the enemies of David^[b] and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.”

Lawsuits Against Believers

6 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous ^(A)instead of the saints? ² Or do you not know that ^(B)the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? ³ Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! ⁴ So if you have such cases, ^(C)why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? ^5 (D)I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, ⁶ but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷ To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. ^(E)Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸ But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even ^(F)your own brothers!^[a]

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous^[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: ^(G)neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practise homosexuality,^{[c] 10} nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And ^(H)such were some of you. But ^(I)you were washed, ^(J)you were sanctified, ^(K)you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.