Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
12 My eyes look with glee on my wicked enemies;
my ears shall hear what happens to my wicked foes.(A)
13 The just shall flourish like the palm tree,
shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon.(B)
14 [a]Planted in the house of the Lord,
they shall flourish in the courts of our God.
15 They shall bear fruit even in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
Solomon’s Riches: Chariots and Horses. 26 (A)Solomon amassed chariots and horses; he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses; these he allocated among the chariot cities and to the king’s service in Jerusalem. 27 (B)The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars as numerous as the sycamores of the Shephelah. 28 Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Cilicia, where the king’s merchants purchased them. 29 A chariot imported from Egypt cost six hundred shekels of silver, a horse one hundred and fifty shekels; they were exported at these rates to all the Hittite and Aramean kings.
Chapter 11
The End of Solomon’s Reign.[a] 1 (C)King Solomon loved many foreign women besides the daughter of Pharaoh—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites— 2 (D)from nations of which the Lord had said to the Israelites: You shall not join with them and they shall not join with you, lest they turn your hearts to their gods. But Solomon held them[b] close in love. 3 He had as wives seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines, and they turned his heart.
4 When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to follow other gods, and his heart was not entirely with the Lord, his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 Solomon followed Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he did not follow the Lord unreservedly as David his father had done. 7 Solomon then built a high place to Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and to Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain opposite Jerusalem. 8 He did the same for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
4 [a]By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice greater than Cain’s. Through this he was attested to be righteous, God bearing witness to his gifts, and through this, though dead, he still speaks.(A) 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and “he was found no more because God had taken him.” Before he was taken up, he was attested to have pleased God.(B) 6 [b]But without faith it is impossible to please him,(C) for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7 By faith Noah, warned about what was not yet seen, with reverence built an ark for the salvation of his household. Through this he condemned the world and inherited the righteousness that comes through faith.(D)
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