Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 29
A psalm by David.
1 Give to Yahweh, you heavenly beings.
Give to Yahweh glory and power.
2 Give to Yahweh the glory his name deserves.
Worship Yahweh in his holy splendor.
3 The voice of Yahweh rolls over the water.
The El of glory thunders.
Yahweh shouts over raging water.
4 The voice of Yahweh is powerful.
The voice of Yahweh is majestic.
5 The voice of Yahweh breaks the cedars.
Yahweh splinters the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon skip along like a calf
and Mount Sirion like a wild ox.
7 The voice of Yahweh strikes with flashes of lightning.
8 The voice of Yahweh makes the wilderness tremble.
Yahweh makes the wilderness of Kadesh tremble.
9 The voice of Yahweh splits the oaks[a]
and strips the trees of the forests bare.
Everyone in his temple is saying, “Glory!”
10 Yahweh sat enthroned over the flood.
Yahweh sits enthroned as Melek forever.
11 Yahweh will give power to his people.
Yahweh will bless his people with peace.
Introducing the Spokesman
1 The words of the spokesman, the son of David and the king in Jerusalem.
The Theme
2 “Absolutely pointless!” says the spokesman. “Absolutely pointless! Everything is pointless.”
Life Is an Endless Circle
3 What do people gain from all their hard work under the sun?
4 Generations come, and generations go,
but the earth lasts forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun sets,
and then it rushes back to the place where it will rise again.
6 The wind blows toward the south and shifts toward the north.
Round and round it blows. It blows in a full circle.
7 All streams flow into the sea, but the sea is never full.
The water goes back to the place where the streams began
in order to start flowing again.
8 All of these sayings are worn-out phrases. They are more than anyone can express, comprehend, or understand.
9 Whatever has happened before will happen again. Whatever has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. 10 Can you say that anything is new? It has already been here long before us. 11 Nothing from the past is remembered. Even in the future, nothing will be remembered by those who come after us.
18 The message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved. 19 Scripture says,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.
I will reject the intelligence of intelligent people.”
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the scholar? Where is the persuasive speaker of our time? Hasn’t God turned the wisdom of the world into nonsense? 21 The world with its wisdom was unable to recognize God in terms of his own wisdom. So God decided to use the nonsense of the Good News we speak to save those who believe. 22 Jews ask for miraculous signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but our message is that Christ was crucified. This offends Jewish people and makes no sense to people who are not Jewish. 24 But to those Jews and Greeks who are called, he is Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom. 25 God’s nonsense is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, consider what you were when God called you to be Christians. Not many of you were wise from a human point of view. You were not in powerful positions or in the upper social classes. 27 But God chose what the world considers nonsense to put wise people to shame. God chose what the world considers weak to put what is strong to shame. 28 God chose what the world considers ordinary and what it despises—what it considers to be nothing—in order to destroy what it considers to be something. 29 As a result, no one can brag in God’s presence. 30 You are partners with Christ Yeshua because of God. Yeshua has become our wisdom sent from God, our approval, our holiness, and our ransom from sin. 31 As Scripture says, “Whoever brags must brag about what the Lord has done.”
The Names of God Bible (without notes) © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.