Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Wishing to Be Near God
A psalm of David when he was in the ·desert [wilderness] of Judah [C fleeing from a jealous Saul; 1 Sam. 21–31].
63 God, you are my God.
I ·search for [am intent on] you.
I thirst for you [42:1–2]
·like someone [or my flesh yearns for you] in a dry, ·empty [exhausted; weary] land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in ·the Temple [L the Holy Place; or holiness]
and have seen your strength and glory.
3 Because your ·love [loyalty] is better than life,
·I [L My lips] will praise you.
4 I will ·praise [bless] you ·as long as I live [L with my life].
I will lift up my hands in your name [C in prayer].
5 I will be ·content as if I had eaten the best foods [L satisfied as with fat and fatness].
My lips will sing, and my mouth will praise you.
6 I remember you while I’m lying in bed;
I ·think about [meditate on] you through the watches of the night [C the night was divided into four watches of three hours each].
7 You are my help.
·Because of your protection [L In the shadow of your wings; C an image of compassion or perhaps a reference to the cherubim whose wings covered the Ark of the Covenant; Ex. 25:20], I sing.
8 I ·stay close [cling] to you;
·you support me with your right hand [L your right hand sustains me].
9 ·Some people are trying to kill me [L They seek my life for ruin],
but they will go down to the ·grave [L underbelly of the earth].
10 They will be ·killed with swords [L handed over to the sword]
and ·eaten by wild dogs [L be the prey of jackals].
11 But the king will rejoice in his God.
All who ·make promises in his name [L swear by him] will praise him,
but the mouths of liars will be shut.
7 The Lord has sworn by ·his name, the Pride of Jacob [or the arrogance of Jacob], “I will never forget everything that these people did.
8 The whole ·land [or earth] will shake because of it,
and everyone who lives in the land will ·cry for those who died [mourn].
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
it will be ·shaken [stirred/heaved up], and then it will ·fall [sink; subside]
like the Nile River in Egypt [C the Nile flooded its banks each year].”
9 The Lord God says:
“·At that time [L In that day] I will cause the sun to go down at noon
and make the earth dark ·on a bright day [in broad daylight].
10 I will change your festivals into ·days of crying for the dead [mourning],
and all your songs will become ·songs of sadness [dirges; lamentation; weeping].
I will ·make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness [L put sackcloth on every waist];
·I will make you shave your heads as well [L …and baldness on every head].
I will make it like ·a time of crying [mourning] for the death of an only son,
and its end like the end of an ·awful [bitter] day.”
11 The Lord God says: “[L Look; T Behold] The days are coming
when I will ·cause a time of hunger in [send a famine throughout] the land.
·The people will not be hungry for bread or thirsty for water [L … not a famine of food or a thirst for water],
but ·they will be hungry for words from [L for hearing the words of] the Lord.
12 They will ·wander [or stagger] from the ·Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea [L sea to sea; C across the whole land],
from the north to the east.
They will ·search for [run to and fro seeking] the word of the Lord,
but they won’t find it.
13 ·At that time [L In that day] the beautiful ·young women [virgins] and the young men
will ·become weak [faint] from thirst.
14 They ·make promises [swear oaths] by the ·idol in [L sin of] Samaria
and say, ‘As surely as the god of Dan lives … [1 Kin. 12:29]’
and, ‘As surely as the ·god of [L way to; C perhaps the pilgrimage route to the pagan worship there] Beersheba lives, we promise….’ [C Dan was the city farthest north in Israel and Beersheba farthest south.]
So they will fall
and never get up again.”
20 Brothers and sisters, do not think like children. In evil things be like ·babies [infants], but in your thinking you should be ·like adults [mature; grown-up]. 21 It is written in the ·Scriptures [L Law; C referring here to all of Scripture]:
“With people who use ·strange words [L different tongues/languages] and ·foreign languages [L different lips]
I will speak to these people.
But even then they will not ·listen to [or obey] me [Is. 28:11–12; see also Deut. 28:49],”
says the Lord. [C Israel didn’t listen when God used foreign-speaking Assyrians to punish them; similarly people won’t benefit from hearing tongues they don’t understand.]
22 So ·the gift of speaking in different kinds of languages [or ecstatic utterance; L tongues] is a sign for unbelievers, not for believers [C tongues served as a warning of judgment and a call to repentance; see Acts 2:4, 21, 38–40]. And prophecy is for believers, not for unbelievers. 23 Suppose the whole church meets together and everyone speaks in ·different languages [L tongues]. If some people come in who ·do not understand [or are inquirers/seekers; v. 16] or are unbelievers, they will say you are ·crazy [insane; C unintelligible tongues sound like babbling]. 24 But suppose everyone is prophesying and unbelievers or ·those who does not understand [or inquirers/seekers] come in. If everyone is prophesying, ·their sin will be shown to them [L they will be convicted by all], and they will be judged by ·all that they hear [L all]. 25 The secret things in their hearts will be made known. So they will ·bow down [L fall face down] and worship God saying, “Truly, God is ·with you [among you; in your midst].” [C Though prophecy is for believers (v. 22), it also convicts unbelievers better than uninterpreted (and so incoherent) tongues (see vv. 27–28), since it is a coherent message from God.]
The Expanded Bible, Copyright © 2011 Thomas Nelson Inc. All rights reserved.