Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Book One

Psalm 1^[a]

¹ Blessed (happy, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable) is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their advice, their plans and purposes], nor stands [submissive and inactive] in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down [to relax and rest] where the scornful [and the mockers] gather.

² But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on His law (the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God) he habitually meditates (ponders and studies) by day and by night.^(A)

³ And he shall be like a tree firmly planted [and tended] by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not fade or wither; and everything he does shall prosper [and come to maturity].^(B)

⁴ Not so the wicked [those disobedient and living without God are not so]. But they are like the chaff [worthless, dead, without substance] which the wind drives away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked [those disobedient and living without God] shall not stand [justified] in the judgment, nor ^[b]sinners in the congregation of the righteous [those who are upright and in right standing with God].

⁶ For the Lord knows and is fully acquainted with the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly [those living outside God’s will] shall perish (end in ruin and come to nought).

17 The sin of Judah is written with a pen or stylus of iron and with the point of a diamond; it is engraved on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars,

² While their children [earnestly] remember their [heathen] altars and their Asherim [wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah] beside the green trees upon the high hills.

³ O [Jerusalem] My mountain in the field, I will give your wealth and all your treasures to the spoil and your high places for sin [as the price of your sin] throughout all your territory.

⁴ And you, through your own fault, will loosen your hand and discontinue from your heritage which I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in a land which you do not know, for you have kindled a fire in My anger which will burn throughout the ages.

²⁴ When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it roams through waterless places in search [of a place] of rest (release, refreshment, ease); and finding none it says, I will go back to my house from which I came.

²⁵ And when it arrives, it finds [the place] swept and put in order and furnished and decorated.

²⁶ And it goes and brings other spirits, seven [of them], more evil than itself, and they enter in, settle down, and dwell there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.

²⁷ Now it occurred that as He was saying these things, a certain woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, Blessed (happy and ^[a]to be envied) is the womb that bore You and the breasts that You sucked!

²⁸ But He said, Blessed (happy and ^[b]to be envied) rather are those who hear the Word of God and obey and practice it!