Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
11 For the sake of your name, Adonai,
forgive my wickedness, great though it is.
12 Who is the person who fears Adonai?
He will teach him the way to choose.
13 He will remain prosperous,
and his descendants will inherit the land.
14 Adonai relates intimately with those who fear him;
he makes them know his covenant.
15 My eyes are always directed toward Adonai,
for he will free my feet from the net.
16 Turn to me, and show me your favor;
for I am alone and oppressed.
17 The troubles of my heart are growing and growing;
bring me out of my distress.
18 See my affliction and suffering,
and take all my sins away.
19 Consider my enemies, how many there are
and how cruelly they hate me.
20 Protect me and rescue me;
don’t let me be disgraced,
for I take refuge in you.
19 Better to be poor and live one’s life uprightly
than engage in crooked speech, for such a one is a fool.
2 To act without knowing how you function is not good;
and if you rush ahead, you will miss your goal.
3 A person’s own folly is what ruins his way,
but he rages in his heart against Adonai.
4 Wealth brings in many friends,
but the poor man loses the one friend he has.
5 A false witness will not go unpunished;
whoever breathes out lies will not escape.
6 Many ask favors of a generous person —
to a giver of gifts, everyone is a friend.
7 A poor man’s relatives all hate him;
even more his friends stay away from him.
He may pursue them with entreaties,
but they aren’t there to be found.
8 To acquire good sense is to love oneself;
to treasure discernment is to prosper.
9 A false witness will not go unpunished;
whoever breathes out lies will perish.
10 It isn’t fitting for a fool to live in luxury,
and even less for a slave to govern princes.
11 People with good sense are slow to anger,
and it is their glory to overlook an offense.
12 A king’s wrath is like the roaring of a lion,
but his favor is like dew on the grass.
13 A son who is a fool is his father’s ruin,
and a nagging wife is like a leak that keeps dripping.
14 A house and wealth are inherited from ancestors,
but a sensible wife is from Adonai.
15 Laziness makes people fall asleep,
and an idle person will go hungry.
16 He who keeps a mitzvah keeps himself safe,
but he who doesn’t care how he lives will die.
17 He who is kind to the poor is lending to Adonai;
and he will repay him for his good deed.
11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning: that we should love each other 12 and not be like Kayin, who was from the Evil One and murdered his own brother. Why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Don’t be amazed, brothers, if the world hates you. 14 We, for our part, know that we have passed from death to life because we keep loving the brothers. The person who fails to keep on loving is still under the power of death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
16 The way that we have come to know love is through his having laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers! 17 If someone has worldly possessions and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how can he be loving God?
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.