Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 57

Refuge in the Shadow of Your Wings
(Psalm 57:7-11 parallels Psalm 108:1-5)

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For the choir director. “Do Not Destroy.”^[a] By David. A miktam.
When he fled from Saul. In the cave.^[b]

The Opening Plea

The Problem

David’s Confidence

² There was a man in Maon who made his livelihood in Carmel. This man was very wealthy. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep at Carmel. ³ The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. This woman had good judgment and was beautiful, but her husband was a harsh, unbending man, who behaved badly. He was from the family line of Caleb.

⁴ In the wilderness David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men and told them, “Go up to Carmel. Approach Nabal and wish him peace in my name. ⁶ Tell him this: ‘Long life to you! Peace be with you! Peace be with your household! Peace be with all that you have! ⁷ Now I hear that you are shearing sheep. Your shepherds have recently been with us, and we did not harm them. Nothing was missing from them the whole time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor with you, for we have come on a good day. Please give whatever you can to your servants and to your son David.’”

⁹ So David’s men came and said all those things to Nabal in the name of David. When they had finished, ¹⁰ Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are so many servants breaking away from their masters these days. ¹¹ Should I take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have butchered for my shearers and give it to men when I do not know where they come from?”

¹² So David’s men left and went on their way. They came back and told David all these things.

¹³ David said to his men, “Each of you, strap on your sword!”

So every man strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. About four hundred men followed David, and two hundred stayed with the supplies.

¹⁴ One of Nabal’s young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Listen to me. You need to know what happened. David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. ¹⁵ Those men have been very good to us, and we have not been harmed, nor have we had anything missing the entire time we were in the countryside with them. ¹⁶ They were a wall around us night and day, the whole time we were among them while we were taking care of the sheep. ¹⁷ So carefully consider what you should do, for they are determined to bring disaster on our master and on his entire household, since he is such a worthless good-for-nothing that no one can talk to him.”

¹⁸ Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers^[a] of wine, five sheep that were already prepared, a bushel^[b] of roasted grain, one hundred clumps of raisins, and two hundred cakes of dried figs. She loaded these supplies on donkeys. ¹⁹ She said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me. I will follow right after you.” But she did not tell her husband, Nabal. ²⁰ As she rode on her donkey and came down to the secluded trail^[c] on the mountain, she saw that David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them.

²¹ Now David had said, “It was all for nothing that I have protected everything that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing from everything that belonged to him. But he has repaid me evil for good. ²² May God punish the enemies of David^[d] severely and double it, if by the morning light I leave alive so much as one person who urinates against a wall.”^[e]

Lawsuits and Unrighteous Behavior

6 If any one of you has a case against another, does he dare to seek judgment before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? ² Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to deal with insignificant lawsuits? ³ Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the matters of this life! ⁴ So if you have lawsuits involving matters of this life, do you appoint those people as your judges whom the church considers of no account? ⁵ I say this to make you feel ashamed. Is it really the case that there is not one wise man among you who would be able to decide a dispute between his brothers? ⁶ Instead, brother sues brother, and that in front of unbelievers! ⁷ The fact that you have lawsuits with one another is already a complete failure on your part. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸ Instead, you yourselves do the wronging and defrauding, and you do it to your brothers!

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor males who have sex with males,^{[a] 10} nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor the verbally abusive, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And some of you were those types of people. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ^[b] and by the Spirit of our God.