Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Security of Those Who Trust in the Lord, and Insecurity of the Wicked.

A Psalm of David.

¹⁸ Then Judah approached him, and said, “Oh my lord, may your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and ^[a](A)do not be angry with your servant; for ^(B)you are equal to Pharaoh. ^19 (C)My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ ²⁰ We said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and ^(D)a little child of his old age. Now ^(E)his brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’ ²¹ Then you said to your servants, ‘^(F)Bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him.’ ²² But we said to my lord, ‘The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, ^[b]his father would die.’ ²³ You said to your servants, however, ‘^(G)Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’ ²⁴ Thus it came about when we went up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. ^25 (H)Our father said, ‘Go back, buy us a little food.’ ²⁶ But we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ ²⁷ Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that ^(I)my wife bore me two sons; ²⁸ and the one went out from me, and ^(J)I said, “Surely he is torn in pieces,” and I have not seen him since. ²⁹ If you take this one also from ^[c]me, and harm befalls him, you will ^(K)bring my gray hair down to Sheol in ^[d]sorrow.’ ³⁰ Now, therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since ^[e](L)his life is bound up in the lad’s life, ³¹ when he sees that the lad is not with us, he will die. Thus your servants will ^(M)bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sheol in sorrow. ³² For your servant ^(N)became surety for the lad to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then ^[f]let me bear the blame before my father forever.’ ³³ Now, therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers. ³⁴ For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me—for fear that I see the evil that would ^[g]overtake my father?”

⁵⁷ “And ^(A)why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? ⁵⁸ For ^(B)while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate, on your way there make an effort to ^[a]settle with him, so that he may not drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. ⁵⁹ I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last ^[b](C)cent.”