Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Prosperity of the One Who Fears the Lord.
112 [a]Praise [b]the Lord!
How (A)blessed is the man who [c]fears the Lord,
Who greatly (B)delights in His commandments.
2 His [d](C)descendants will be mighty [e]on earth;
The generation of the (D)upright will be blessed.
3 (E)Wealth and riches are in his house,
And his righteousness endures forever.
4 Light arises in the darkness (F)for the upright;
He is (G)gracious and compassionate and righteous.
5 It is well with the man who (H)is gracious and lends;
He will [f]maintain his cause in judgment.
6 For he will (I)never be shaken;
The (J)righteous will be [g]remembered forever.
Laws on Morality
13 “(A)If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then [a]turns against her, 14 and charges her with shameful deeds and [b]publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,’ 15 then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16 The girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he [c]turned against her; 17 and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But [d]this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. 18 So (B)the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he [e]publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot [f]divorce her all his days.
20 “But if this [g](C)charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, 21 then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her [h]to death because she has (D)committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus (E)you shall purge the evil from among you.
22 “(F)If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23 “(G)If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another 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 you shall stone them [i]to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
25 “But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. 27 When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
28 “(H)If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.
30 “[j](I)A man shall not take his father’s wife so that he will not uncover his father’s skirt.
Teaching on Marriage
7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is (A)good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. 3 The husband must [a]fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 (B)Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and [b]come together again so that (C)Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 But this I say by way of concession, (D)not of command. 7 [c]Yet I wish that all men were (E)even as I myself am. However, (F)each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that.
8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is (G)good for them if they remain (H)even as I. 9 But if they do not have self-control, (I)let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
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