Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 53
The Fool
(Psalm 14)
Heading
For the choir director. According to mahalath.[a] A maskil by David.
A Description of the Fool
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt. They commit horrible evil.
There is no one who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven on all the children of Adam
to see if there is anyone who understands,
anyone who seeks God.
3 Every single one has turned back.
Altogether they have become rotten.
There is no one who does good.
There is not even one.
The Final Fate of the Fool
4 Don’t they know, all those evildoers,
who devour my people as if they were eating bread?
They do not call on God.
5 There they are, terrified, where there was nothing to fear.
For God scattered the bones of those who camped against you.
You put them to shame, because God despised them.
Closing Prayer
6 Who will provide salvation for Israel from Zion?[b]
When God restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
Sabbatical Years
25 The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say this to them.”
When you enter the land that I am giving to you, the land shall observe a sabbath rest for the Lord. 3 For six years you may sow your field, and for six years you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce. 4 But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord. You shall not sow your field, and you shall not prune your vineyard. 5 You shall not reap the produce that grows by itself from your harvest or gather the grapes from your unpruned vine. It shall be a year of complete rest for the land. 6 The sabbath of the land will, however, provide food for you—for you, for your male slaves and for your female slaves, for your hired workers and for your servants who are living with you temporarily as aliens working for you, 7 for your livestock and for the wild animals which are in your land. You may eat all its produce.[a]
The Jubilee
8 You shall count off seven weeks of years. Count off seven years seven times, so that the duration of the seven weeks of years is forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound loud blasts on the ram’s horn. In the seventh month on the tenth day, on the Day of Atonement, you are to have a ram’s horn sounded throughout your land, 10 so that you may set aside the fiftieth year as holy and proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you, so that each of you may return to his family property and each of you may return to his clan. 11 The fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you. You shall not sow the field, and you shall not reap the grain that grows by itself, and you shall not gather fruit from its unpruned vines. 12 Because it is a Jubilee, it shall be holy for you. You may eat its produce from the field. 13 In this year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his family property.
14 When you sell some land to your countryman, or when you buy land from your countryman, you must not cheat your brother Israelite. 15 When you buy from your countryman, set the price according to the number of years since the last Jubilee. When he sells it to you, he shall set the price according to the number of years of produce left till the next Jubilee. 16 When there are many years left, you shall increase the purchase price. When there are few years left, you shall decrease its purchase price, because what the owner is actually selling to you is the amount of produce. 17 So each of you must not cheat your countryman, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.
18 You shall carry out my regulations, and you shall observe my ordinances. You shall carry them out, so that you may live on the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live securely on it.
9 The angel said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.” He also said to me, “These are the true words of God.” 10 And I bowed down at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, who have the testimony about Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.