Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 92

A Psalm. A song for the Sabbath day.

¹ It is a good and delightful thing to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises [with musical accompaniment] to Your name, O Most High,

² To show forth Your loving-kindness in the morning and Your faithfulness by night,

³ With an instrument of ten strings and with the lute, with a solemn sound upon the lyre.

⁴ For You, O Lord, have made me glad by Your works; at the deeds of Your hands I joyfully sing.

¹² The [uncompromisingly] righteous shall flourish like the palm tree [be long-lived, stately, upright, useful, and fruitful]; they shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon [majestic, stable, durable, and incorruptible].

¹³ Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God.

¹⁴ [Growing in grace] they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap [of spiritual vitality] and [rich in the] verdure [of trust, love, and contentment].

¹⁵ [They are living memorials] to show that the Lord is upright and faithful to His promises; He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.^(A)

²⁶ Solomon collected chariots and horsemen; he had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, which he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.

²⁷ The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars as plentiful as the sycamore trees in the lowlands.

²⁸ Solomon’s horses were brought out of Egypt, and the king’s merchants received them in droves, each at a price.^(A)

²⁹ A chariot could be brought out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver, and a horse for 150. And so to all the kings of the Hittites and of Syria they were exported by the king’s merchants.

11 But King Solomon [defiantly] loved many foreign women—the ^[a]daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites.

² They were of the very nations of whom the Lord said to the Israelites, You shall not mingle with them, neither shall they mingle with you, for surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods. Yet Solomon clung to these in love.^(B)

³ He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart from God.

⁴ For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect (complete and whole) with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

⁵ For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abominable idol of the Ammonites!^(C)

⁶ Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as David his father did.

⁷ Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abominable idol of Moab, on the hill opposite Jerusalem, and for Molech the abominable idol of the Ammonites.

⁸ And he did so ^[b]for all of his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

⁴ [Prompted, actuated] by faith Abel brought God a better and more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, because of which it was testified of him that he was righteous [that he was upright and in right standing with God], and God bore witness by accepting and acknowledging his gifts. And though he died, yet [through the incident] he is still speaking.^(A)

⁵ Because of faith Enoch was caught up and transferred to heaven, so that he did not have a glimpse of death; and he was not found, because God had translated him. For even before he was taken to heaven, he received testimony [still on record] that he had pleased and been satisfactory to God.^(B)

⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].

⁷ [Prompted] by faith Noah, being forewarned by God concerning events of which as yet there was no visible sign, took heed and diligently and reverently constructed and prepared an ark for the deliverance of his own family. By this [his faith which relied on God] he passed judgment and sentence on the world’s unbelief and became an heir and possessor of righteousness (^[a]that relation of being right into which God puts the person who has faith).^(C)