Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 57

For the choir director; al tashcheth;^[a] a miktam by David when he fled from Saul into the cave.

David, Nabal, and Abigail

² Now, there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. He was a very rich man. He had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. And he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ This man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was sensible and beautiful, but he was harsh and mean. He was a descendant of Caleb.

⁴ While David was in the desert, he heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men and told them, “Go to Carmel, visit Nabal, and greet him for me. ⁶ Say to him, ‘May you live long! May you, your home, and all you have prosper! ⁷ I hear that your sheepshearers are with you. Your shepherds have been with us, and we have not mistreated them. Nothing of theirs has been missing as long as they’ve been in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and let them tell you. Be kind to my young men, since we have come on a special occasion. Please give us and your son David anything you can spare.’”

⁹ When David’s young men came to Nabal, they repeated all of this to him for David, and then they waited.

¹⁰ “Who is David?” Nabal answered David’s servants. “Who is Jesse’s son? So many servants nowadays are leaving their masters. ¹¹ Should I take my bread, my water, and my meat that I butchered for my shearers and give them to men coming from who knows where?”

¹² David’s young men returned and told him all this.

¹³ “Each of you put on your swords!” David told his men. And everyone, including David, put on his sword. About four hundred men went with David, while two hundred men stayed with the supplies.

¹⁴ One of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers from the desert to greet our master, who yelled at them. ¹⁵ Those men were very good to us. They didn’t mistreat us, and we found that nothing was missing wherever we went with them when we were in the fields. ¹⁶ They were a wall protecting us day and night as long as we were watching the sheep near them. ¹⁷ Now, consider what you should do because our master and his whole household are doomed. And he’s such a worthless man that it’s useless to talk to him.”

¹⁸ So Abigail quickly took 200 loaves of bread, 2 full wineskins, 5 butchered sheep, a bushel of roasted grain, 100 bunches of raisins, and 200 fig cakes and loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹ “Go on ahead,” she told her young men, “and I’ll follow you.” But she didn’t tell her husband Nabal about it.

²⁰ She was riding on her donkey down a hidden mountain path when she met David and his men coming toward her. ²¹ David had thought, “I guarded this man’s stuff in the desert for nothing! Not one of his possessions was missing. Yet, he has paid me back with evil when I was good to him. ²² May Elohim punish me^[a] if I leave even one of his men^[b] alive in the morning.”

Settling Disagreements between Christians

6 When one of you has a complaint against another, how dare you go to court to settle the matter in front of wicked people. Why don’t you settle it in front of God’s holy people? ² Don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world? So if you’re going to judge the world, aren’t you capable of judging insignificant cases? ³ Don’t you know that we will judge angels, not to mention things in this life? ⁴ When you have cases dealing with this life, why do you allow people whom the church has a low opinion of to be your judges? ⁵ You should be ashamed of yourselves! Don’t you have at least one wise person who is able to settle disagreements between believers? ⁶ Instead, one believer goes to court against another believer, and this happens in front of unbelievers.

⁷ You are already totally defeated because you have lawsuits against each other. Why don’t you accept the fact that you have been wronged? Why don’t you accept that you have been cheated? ⁸ Instead, you do wrong and cheat, and you do this to other believers.

⁹ Don’t you know that wicked people won’t inherit the kingdom of God? Stop deceiving yourselves! People who continue to commit sexual sins, who worship false gods, those who commit adultery, homosexuals, ¹⁰ or thieves, those who are greedy or drunk, who use abusive language, or who rob people will not inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ That’s what some of you were! But you have been washed and made holy, and you have received God’s approval in the name of the Lord Yeshua Christ and in the Spirit of our God.