Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 56
When I Am Afraid
Heading
For the choir director. “A Dove on Distant Oaks.”[a]
By David. A miktam.[b]
When the Philistines had seized him in Gath.[c]
The Enemies
1 Be merciful to me, O God, for a man pants as he pursues me.[d]
All day long an attacker presses against me.
2 Those who spy on me pant as they pursue me all day long.
Yes, many are attacking me boldly.[e]
David’s Trust
3 On the day when I am afraid, I will trust in you.
4 In God I praise his word.
In God I trust. I will not fear.
What can flesh do to me?
The Enemies
5 All day long they hurt my cause.[f]
All their thoughts against me are evil.
6 They gather together. They hide.
They try to trip me by grabbing my heels
while they wait to take my life.
David’s Trust
7 Because of their wickedness do not let them escape.[g]
In your anger bring down the peoples, O God.
8 You keep a record of my tossing and turning.[h]
Keep my tears in your bottle.
Aren’t they all listed in your book?
9 Then my enemies will turn back on the day when I call.
This is how I will know that God is for me.
10 In God I praise a word.[i]
In the Lord I praise a word.
11 In God I trust. I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
David’s Promise
12 My vows to you are binding, O God.
I will complete my thank offerings to you,
13 because you have delivered my life from death.
Have you not delivered my feet from stumbling
so I can walk before God in the light of life?
8 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Get up! Go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there. I have commanded a woman there, a widow, to provide for you.”
10 So he got up and went to Zarephath. He came to the city gate, and there he saw a widow gathering sticks. He called to her and said, “Please give me a little water in a jar, so that I can have something to drink.”
11 When she went to get it, he called to her, “Please bring me a piece of bread.”
12 She said, “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I have no food except a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a pitcher. See, I am gathering a couple of sticks so that I can go and prepare it for myself and my son, so that we can eat it and then die.”
13 Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go and do just as you said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from the flour and bring it out to me. Then go and make another for you and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. The jar of flour will not run out and the pitcher of oil will not become empty until the day the Lord sends rain to water the surface of the ground.”
15 So she went and did exactly as Elijah said. He and she, as well as her household, were able to eat for many days. 16 The jar of flour did not run out, and the pitcher of oil did not become empty, just as the Lord had said through Elijah.
In-Depth Wisdom Is for Spiritual People
6 Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, but it is not a wisdom of this world or of the rulers of this world, who are being reduced to nothing. 7 Instead we speak God’s wisdom that has been hidden in mystery—before the ages, God foreordained that this wisdom would result in our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this world knew it. (If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.) 9 But as it is written:
What no eye has seen and no ear has heard
and no human mind has conceived—
that is what God has prepared for those who love him.[a]
10 But God revealed it to us through his[b] Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 Indeed, who among men knows a man’s thoughts except the man’s spirit within him? So also, no one else knows God’s thoughts except God’s Spirit.
12 What we received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the blessings freely given to us by God. 13 We also speak about these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words.[c] 14 However, an unspiritual person does not accept the truths taught by God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually evaluated. 15 But the spiritual person evaluates all things, and he himself is evaluated by no one. 16 Indeed, “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who will instruct him?”[d] But we have the mind of Christ.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.