◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) / Psalm 141 (God is my refuge); Ezekiel 11:14-25 (Judgment and promised restoration); Ephesians 4:25—5:2 (Be imitators of God) (New English Translation)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 141

Psalm 141^[a]

A psalm of David.

141 O Lord, I cry out to you. Come quickly to me.
Pay attention to me when I cry out to you.
²May you accept my prayer like incense,
my uplifted hands like the evening offering.^[b]
³O Lord, place a guard on my mouth.
Protect the opening^[c] of my lips.^[d]
⁴Do not let me have evil desires,^[e]
or participate in sinful activities
with men who behave wickedly.^[f]
I will not eat their delicacies.^[g]
⁵May the godly strike me in love and correct me.
May my head not refuse^[h] choice oil.^[i]
Indeed, my prayer is a witness against their evil deeds.^[j]
⁶They will be thrown over the side of a cliff by their judges.^[k]
They^[l] will listen to my words, for they are pleasant.
⁷As when one plows and breaks up the soil,^[m]
so our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
⁸Surely I am looking to you,^[n] O Sovereign Lord.
In you I take shelter.
Do not expose me to danger.^[o]
⁹Protect me from the snare they have laid for me,
and the traps the evildoers have set.^[p]
¹⁰Let the wicked fall^[q] into their^[r] own nets,
while I escape.^[s]

Footnotes

Psalm 141:1 sn Psalm 141. The psalmist asks God to protect him from sin and from sinful men.
Psalm 141:2 tn Heb “may my prayer be established [like] incense before you, the uplifting of my hands [like] an evening offering.”
Psalm 141:3 tn Heb “door.” The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.
Psalm 141:3 sn My mouth…my lips. The psalmist asks God to protect him from speaking inappropriately or sinfully.
Psalm 141:4 tn Heb “do not turn my heart toward an evil thing.”
Psalm 141:4 tn Heb “to act sinfully in practices in wickedness with men, doers of evil.”
Psalm 141:4 sn Their delicacies. This probably refers to the enjoyment that a sinful lifestyle appears to offer.
Psalm 141:5 tn The form יָנִי (yani) appears to be derived from the verbal root נוּא (nuʾ). Another option is to emend the form to יְנָא (y^enaʾ), a Piel from נָאָה (naʾah), and translate “may choice oil not adorn my head” (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 271). In this case, choice oil, like delicacies in v. 4, symbolize the pleasures of sin.
Psalm 141:5 sn May my head not refuse choice oil. The psalmist compares the constructive criticism of the godly (see the previous line) to having refreshing olive oil poured over one’s head.
Psalm 141:5 tc Heb “for still, and my prayer [is] against their evil deeds.” The syntax of the Hebrew text is difficult; the sequence -כִּי־עוֹד וּ (ki ʿod u-, “for still and”) occurs only here. The translation assumes an emendation to כִּי עֵד תְּפִלָּתִי (ki ʿed t^efillati, “indeed a witness [is] my prayer”). The psalmist’s lament about the evil actions of sinful men (see v. 4) testifies against the wicked in the divine court.
Psalm 141:6 tn Heb “they are thrown down by the hands of a cliff, their judges.” The syntax of the Hebrew text is difficult and the meaning uncertain. The perfect verbal form is understood as rhetorical; the psalmist describes the anticipated downfall of the wicked as if it had already occurred. “Their judges” could be taken as the subject of the verb, but this makes little, if any, sense. The translation assumes the judges are the agents and that the wicked, mentioned earlier in the psalm, are the subjects of the verb.
Psalm 141:6 tn It is unclear how this statement relates to the preceding sentence. Perhaps the judges are the referent of the pronominal subject (“they”) of the verb “will listen,” and “my words” are the referent of the pronominal subject (“they”) of the phrase “are pleasant.” The psalmist may be affirming here his confidence that he will be vindicated when he presents his case before the judges, while the wicked will be punished.
Psalm 141:7 tn Heb “like splitting and breaking open in the earth.” The meaning of the statement and the point of the comparison are not entirely clear. Perhaps the psalmist is suggesting that he and other godly individuals are as good as dead; their bones are scattered about like dirt that is dug up and tossed aside.
Psalm 141:8 tn Heb “my eyes [are] toward you.”
Psalm 141:8 tn Heb “do not lay bare my life.” Only here is the Piel form of the verb collocated with the term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “life”). In Isa 53:12 the Lord’s servant “lays bare (the Hiphil form of the verb is used) his life to death.”
Psalm 141:9 tn Heb “and the traps of the doers of evil.”
Psalm 141:10 tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive of prayer. Another option is to translate, “the wicked will fall.”
Psalm 141:10 tn Heb “his.”
Psalm 141:10 tn Heb “at the same [that] I, until I pass by.” Another option is to take יַחַד (yakhad) with the preceding line, “let the wicked fall together into their own nets.”

Ezekiel 11:14-25

¹⁴Then the Lord’s message came to me: ¹⁵“Son of man, your brothers,^[a] your relatives,^[b] and the whole house of Israel, all of them are those to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘They have gone far away^[c] from the Lord; to us this land has been given as a possession.’

¹⁶“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Although I have removed them far away among the nations and have dispersed them among the countries, I have been a little^[d] sanctuary for them among the lands where they have gone.’

¹⁷“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When I regather you from the peoples and assemble you from the lands where you have been dispersed, I will give you back the country of Israel.’

¹⁸“When they return to it, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. ¹⁹I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them;^[e] I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies^[f] and I will give them tender hearts,^[g] ²⁰so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.^[h] ²¹But those whose hearts are devoted to detestable things and abominations, I hereby repay them for what they have done,^[i] says the Sovereign Lord.”

²²Then the cherubim spread^[j] their wings with their wheels alongside them while the glory of the God of Israel hovered above them. ²³The glory of the Lord rose up from within the city and stopped^[k] over the mountain east of it. ²⁴Then a wind^[l] lifted me up and carried me to the exiles in Babylonia,^[m] in the vision given to me by the Spirit of God.

Then the vision I had seen went up from me. ²⁵So I told the exiles everything^[n] the Lord had shown me.

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

²⁵Therefore, having laid aside falsehood, each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor,^[a] because we are members of one another. ²⁶Be angry and do not sin;^[b] do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger.^[c] ²⁷Do not give the devil an opportunity. ²⁸The one who steals must steal no longer; instead he must labor, doing good with his own hands, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need. ²⁹You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need,^[d] that it would give grace to those who hear. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹You must put away all bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and slanderous talk—indeed all malice.^[e] ³²Instead,^[f] be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.

Live in Love

5 Therefore, be^[g] imitators of God as dearly loved children ²and live^[h] in love, just as Christ also loved us^[i] and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering^[j] to God.

Footnotes

Ephesians 4:25 sn A quotation from Zech 8:16.
Ephesians 4:26 sn A quotation from Ps 4:4. Although several translations render the phrase Be angry and do not sin as “If you are angry, do not sin” such is unlikely on a grammatical, lexical, and historical level (see D. B. Wallace, “᾿Οργίζεσθε in Ephesians 4:26: Command or Condition?” CTR 3 [1989]: 352-72). The idea of vv. 26-27 is as follows: Christians are to exercise a righteous indignation over sin in the midst of the believing community (v. 26a; note that v. 25 is restricting the discussion to those in the body of Christ). When other believers sin, such people should be gently and quickly confronted (v. 26b), for if the body of Christ does not address sin in its midst, the devil gains a foothold (v. 27). “Entirely opposite of the ‘introspective conscience’ view, this text seems to be a shorthand expression for church discipline, suggesting that there is a biblical warrant for δικαία ὀργή [dikaia orgē] (as the Greeks put it)—righteous indignation” (ExSyn 492).
Ephesians 4:26 tn The word παροργισμός (parorgismos), typically translated “anger” in most versions is used almost exclusively of the source of anger rather than the results in Greek literature (thus, it refers to an external cause or provocation rather than an internal reaction). The notion of “cause of your anger” is both lexically and historically justified. The apparently proverbial nature of the statement (“Do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger”) finds several remarkable parallels in Pss. Sol. 8:8-9: “(8) God laid bare their sins in the full light of day; All the earth came to know the righteous judgments of God. (9) In secret places underground their iniquities (were committed) to provoke (Him) to anger” (R. H. Charles’ translation). Not only is παροργισμός used, but righteous indignation against God’s own people and the laying bare of their sins in broad daylight are also seen.
Ephesians 4:29 tn Grk “but if something good for the building up of the need.” The final genitive τῆς χρείας (tēs chreias) may refer to “the need of the moment” or it may refer to the need of a particular person or group of people as the next phrase “give grace to those who hear” indicates.
Ephesians 4:31 tn Grk “with all malice.” This final phrase provides a cumulative point of focus for this list and presents a summary vice encompassing all the others. The translation attempts to make this nuance clear.
Ephesians 4:32 tc ‡ Although most witnesses have either δέ (de; P⁴⁹ א A D² Ψ 33 1505 1739^mg 2464 M lat) or οὖν (oun; D* F G 1175) here, a few significant mss lack a conjunction (P⁴⁶ B 0278 6 1739* 1881). If either conjunction were originally in the text, it is difficult to explain how the asyndetic construction could have arisen (although the dropping of δέ could have occurred via homoioteleuton). Further, although Hellenistic Greek rarely joined sentences without a conjunction, such does occur in the corpus Paulinum on occasion, especially to underscore a somber point. “Instead” has been supplied in the translation because of stylistic requirements, not textual basis. NA²⁸ places δέ in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.
Ephesians 5:1 tn Or “become.”
Ephesians 5:2 tn Grk “walk.” The NT writers often used the verb “walk” (περιπατέω, peripateō) to refer to ethical conduct (cf. Rom 8:4; Gal 5:16; Col 4:5).
Ephesians 5:2 tc A number of significant witnesses have ὑμᾶς (humas, “you”; e.g., א*^,2b A B P 0159 81 1175 al it co as well as several fathers). Other, equally valuable witnesses read ἡμᾶς (hēmas, “us”; P⁴⁶ א^2a D F G Ψ 0278 33 1505 1739 1881 2464 al lat sy). It is possible that ἡμᾶς was accidentally introduced via homoioarcton with the previous word (ἠγάπησεν, ēgapēsen). On the other hand, ὑμᾶς may have been motivated by the preceding ὑμῖν (humin) in 4:32 and second person verbs in 5:1, 2. Further, the flow of argument seems to require the first person pronoun. A decision is difficult to make, but the first person pronoun has a slightly greater probability of being authentic.
Ephesians 5:2 tn Grk “an offering and sacrifice to God as a smell of fragrance.” The first expression, προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν (prosphoran kai thusian), is probably a hendiadys and has been translated such that “sacrificial” modifies “offering.” The second expression, εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας (eis osmēn euōdias, “as a smell of fragrance”) has been translated as “a fragrant offering”; see BDAG 728-29 s.v. ὀσμή 2. Putting these two together in a clear fashion in English yields the translation: “a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.”

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 141[a]

A psalm of David.

Footnotes

Footnotes

Live in Love

Footnotes

Psalm 141^[a]