Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 57^[a]

Confident Prayer for Deliverance

¹ For the director. Do not destroy.^[b] A miktam of David, when he fled from Saul into a cave.^(A)

I

II

Nabal and Abigail. ² There was a man of Maon who had property in Carmel; he was very wealthy, owning three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. At the time, he was present for the shearing of his flock in Carmel.^{(A) 3} The man’s name was Nabal and his wife was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and attractive, but Nabal, a Calebite, was harsh and bad-mannered.^{(B) 4} While in the wilderness, David heard that Nabal was shearing his flock, ⁵ so he sent ten young men, instructing them: “Go up to Carmel. Pay Nabal a visit and greet him in my name. ⁶ Say to him, ‘Peace be with you, my brother, and with your family, and with all who belong to you. ⁷ I have just heard that shearers are with you. Now, when your shepherds were with us, we did them no injury, neither did they miss anything while they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your servants and they will tell you. Look kindly on these young men, since we come at a festival time. Please give your servants and your son David^[a] whatever you can.’”

⁹ When David’s young men arrived, they delivered the entire message to Nabal in David’s name, and then waited. ¹⁰ But Nabal answered the servants of David: “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? Nowadays there are many servants who run away from their masters. ¹¹ Must I take my bread, my wine, my meat that I have slaughtered for my own shearers, and give them to men who come from who knows where?” ¹² So David’s young men retraced their steps and on their return reported to him all that had been said. ¹³ Thereupon David said to his men, “Let everyone strap on his sword.” And everyone did so, and David put on his own sword. About four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.

¹⁴ Abigail, Nabal’s wife, was informed of this by one of the servants, who said: “From the wilderness David sent messengers to greet our master, but he screamed at them. ¹⁵ Yet these men were very good to us. We were not harmed, neither did we miss anything all the while we were living among them during our stay in the open country. ¹⁶ Day and night they were a wall of protection for us, the whole time we were pasturing the sheep near them. ¹⁷ Now, see what you can do, for you must realize that otherwise disaster is in store for our master and for his whole house. He is such a scoundrel that no one can talk to him.” ¹⁸ Abigail quickly got together two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of pressed raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹ She then said to her servants, “Go on ahead; I will follow you.” But to her husband Nabal she said nothing.

²⁰ Hidden by the mountain, she came down riding on a donkey, as David and his men were coming down from the opposite direction. When she met them, ²¹ David had just been saying: “Indeed, it was in vain that I guarded all this man’s possessions in the wilderness, so that nothing of his was missing. He has repaid good with evil. ²² May God do thus to David, and more, if by morning I leave a single male alive among all those who belong to him.”^(C)

Chapter 6

Lawsuits Before Unbelievers.^{[a] 1} How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? ^2 [b]Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts?^{(A) 3} Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters? ⁴ If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church? ⁵ I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? ⁶ But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers?

⁷ Now indeed [then] it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?^{(B) 8} Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. ^9 [c]Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes^[d] nor sodomites^{(C) 10} nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.^(D)

Sexual Immorality.^[e]