Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 83

A song. A Psalm of Asaph.

¹ Keep not silence, O God; hold not Your peace or be still, O God.

² For, behold, Your enemies are in tumult, and those who hate You have raised their heads.^(A)

³ They lay crafty schemes against Your people and consult together against Your hidden and precious ones.

⁴ They have said, Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be in remembrance no more.

⁵ For they have consulted together with one accord and one heart; against You they make a covenant—

⁶ The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, of Moab and the Hagrites,

⁷ Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, the Philistines, with the inhabitants of Tyre.

⁸ Assyria also has joined with them; they have helped the children of Lot [the Ammonites and the Moabites] and have been an arm to them. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁹ Do to them as [You did to] the Midianites, as to Sisera and Jabin at the brook of Kishon,^(B)

¹⁰ Who perished at Endor, who became like manure for the earth.

¹¹ Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, yes, all their princes as Zebah and Zalmunna,^(C)

¹² Who say, Let us take possession for ourselves of the pastures of God.

¹³ O my God, make them like whirling dust, like stubble or chaff before the wind!

¹⁴ As fire consumes the forest, and as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,

¹⁵ So pursue and afflict them with Your tempest and terrify them with Your tornado or hurricane.

¹⁶ Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek, inquire for, and insistently require Your name, O Lord.

¹⁷ Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever; yes, let them be put to shame and perish,

¹⁸ That they may know that You, Whose name alone is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.

¹⁷ Then Jacob rose up and set his sons and his wives upon the camels;

¹⁸ And he drove away all his livestock and all his gain which he had gotten, the livestock he had obtained and accumulated in Padan-aram, to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.

¹⁹ Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep [possibly to the feast of sheepshearing], and Rachel stole her father’s household gods.

²⁰ And Jacob outwitted Laban the Syrian [Aramean] in that he did not tell him that he [intended] to flee and slip away secretly.

²¹ So he fled with all that he had, and arose and crossed the river [Euphrates] and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.

²² But on the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.

²³ So he took his kinsmen with him and pursued after [Jacob] for seven days, and they overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.

²⁴ But God came to Laban the Syrian [Aramean] in a dream by night and said to him, Be careful that you do not speak from good to bad to Jacob [peaceably, then violently].

²⁵ Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent on the hill, and Laban coming with his kinsmen pitched [his tents] on the same hill of Gilead.

²⁶ And Laban said to Jacob, What do you mean stealing away and leaving like this without my knowing it, and carrying off my daughters as if captives of the sword?

²⁷ Why did you flee secretly and cheat me and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with joy and gladness and with singing, with tambourine and lyre?

²⁸ And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons [grandchildren] and my daughters good-bye? Now you have done foolishly [in behaving like this].

²⁹ It is in my power to do you harm; but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful that you do not speak from good to bad to Jacob [peaceably, then violently].

³⁰ And now you felt you must go because you were homesick for your father’s house, but why did you steal my [household] ^[a]gods?

³¹ Jacob answered Laban, Because I was afraid; for I thought, Suppose you would take your daughters from me by force.

³² The one with whom you find those gods of yours, let him not live. Here before our kinsmen [search my possessions and] take whatever you find that belongs to you. For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen [the images].

³³ So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. Then he went from Leah’s tent into Rachel’s tent.

³⁴ Now Rachel had taken the images (gods) and put them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. Laban searched and felt through all the tent, but did not find them.

³⁵ And [Rachel] said to her father, Do not be displeased, my lord, that I cannot rise up before you, for the period of women is upon me and I am unwell. And he searched, but did not find the gods.

3 O you poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians! Who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom—right before your very eyes—Jesus Christ (the Messiah) was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified?

² Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the [Holy] Spirit as the result of obeying the Law and doing its works, or was it by hearing [the message of the Gospel] and believing [it]? [Was it from observing a law of rituals or from a message of faith?]

³ Are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly? Having begun [your new life spiritually] with the [Holy] Spirit, are you now reaching perfection [by dependence] on the flesh?

⁴ Have you suffered so many things and experienced so much all for nothing (to no purpose)—if it really is to no purpose and in vain?

⁵ Then does He Who supplies you with His marvelous [Holy] Spirit and works powerfully and miraculously among you do so on [the grounds of your doing] what the Law demands, or because of your believing in and adhering to and trusting in and relying on the message that you heard?

⁶ Thus Abraham believed in and adhered to and trusted in and relied on God, and it was reckoned and placed to his account and credited as righteousness (as conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action).^(A)

⁷ Know and understand that it is [really] the people [who live] by faith who are [the true] sons of Abraham.

⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify (declare righteous, put in right standing with Himself) the Gentiles in consequence of faith, proclaimed the Gospel [foretelling the glad tidings of a Savior long beforehand] to Abraham in the promise, saying, In you shall all the nations [of the earth] be blessed.^(B)

⁹ So then, those who are people of faith are blessed and made happy and favored by God [as partners in fellowship] with the believing and trusting Abraham.