Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 112

¹ Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!) Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who fears (reveres and worships) the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments.^(A)

² His [spiritual] offspring shall be mighty upon earth; the generation of the upright shall be blessed.

³ Prosperity and welfare are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.

⁴ Light arises in the darkness for the upright, gracious, compassionate, and just [who are in right standing with God].

⁵ It is well with the man who deals generously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice.^(B)

⁶ He will not be moved forever; the [uncompromisingly] righteous (the upright, in right standing with God) shall be in everlasting remembrance.^(C)

⁷ He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is firmly fixed, trusting (leaning on and being confident) in the Lord.

⁸ His heart is established and steady, he will not be afraid while he waits to see his desire established upon his adversaries.

⁹ He has distributed freely [he has given to the poor and needy]; his righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God) endures forever; his horn shall be exalted in honor.^(D)

¹⁰ The wicked man will see it and be grieved and angered, he will gnash his teeth and disappear [in despair]; the desire of the wicked shall perish and come to nothing.

¹³ If any man takes a wife and goes in to her, and then scorns her

¹⁴ And charges her with shameful things and gives her an evil reputation, and says, I took this woman, but when I came to her, I did not find in her the tokens of a virgin,

¹⁵ Then the father of the young woman, and her mother, shall get and bring out the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.

¹⁶ And her father shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man as wife, but he hates and spurns her;

¹⁷ And behold, he has made shameful charges against her, saying, I found not in your daughter the evidences of her virginity. And yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city,

¹⁸ And the elders of that city shall take the man and rebuke and whip him.

¹⁹ And they shall fine him 100 shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he may not divorce her all his days.

²⁰ But if it is true that the evidences of virginity were not found in the young woman,

²¹ Then they shall bring her to the door of her father’s house and the men of her city shall stone her to death, because she has wrought [criminal] folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.

²² If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

²³ If a maiden who is a virgin is engaged to be married, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her,

²⁴ Then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and shall stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So shall you put away evil from among you.

²⁵ But if a man finds the betrothed maiden in the open country and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.

²⁶ But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no sin punishable by death, for this is as when a man attacks and slays his neighbor,

²⁷ For he came upon her in the open country, and the betrothed girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

²⁸ If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her and they are found,

²⁹ Then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her; he may not divorce her all his days.

³⁰ A man shall not take his father’s former wife, nor shall he uncover her who belongs to his father.

7 Now as to the matters of which you wrote me. It is well [and by that I mean advantageous, expedient, profitable, and wholesome] for a man not to touch a woman [to cohabit with her] but to remain unmarried.

² But because of the temptation to impurity and to avoid immorality, let each [man] have his own wife and let each [woman] have her own husband.

³ The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights (goodwill, kindness, and what is due her as his wife), and likewise the wife to her husband.

⁴ For the wife does not have [exclusive] authority and control over her own body, but the husband [has his rights]; likewise also the husband does not have [exclusive] authority and control over his body, but the wife [has her rights].

⁵ Do not refuse and deprive and defraud each other [of your due marital rights], except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, so that you may devote yourselves unhindered to prayer. But afterwards resume marital relations, lest Satan tempt you [to sin] through your lack of restraint of sexual desire.^(A)

⁶ But I am saying this more as a matter of permission and concession, not as a command or regulation.

⁷ I wish that all men were like I myself am [in this matter of self-control]. But each has his own special gift from God, one of this kind and one of another.

⁸ But to the unmarried people and to the widows, I declare that it is well (good, advantageous, expedient, and wholesome) for them to remain [single] even as I do.

⁹ But if they have not self-control (restraint of their passions), they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame [with passion and tortured continually with ungratified desire].