Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
14 Foolish people say in their hearts,
“There is no God.”
They do all kinds of horrible and evil things.
No one does anything good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven
on all people.
He wants to see if there are any who understand.
He wants to see if there are any who trust in God.
3 All of them have turned away.
They have all become evil.
No one does anything good,
no one at all.
4 Do all these people who do evil know nothing?
They eat up my people as if they were eating bread.
They never call out to the Lord.
5 But just look at them! They are filled with terror
because God is among those who do right.
6 You who do evil keep poor people from succeeding.
But the Lord is their place of safety.
7 How I pray that the God who saves Israel will come out of Zion!
Then the Lord will bless his people with great success again.
So let the people of Jacob be filled with joy! Let Israel be glad!
David Wins the Victory Over the Ammonites
10 The king of Ammon died. His son Hanun became the next king after him. 2 David thought, “I’m going to be kind to Hanun. His father Nahash was kind to me.” So David sent messengers to Hanun. He wanted them to tell Hanun how sad he was that Hanun’s father had died.
David’s messengers went to the land of Ammon. 3 The Ammonite commanders spoke to their master Hanun. They said, “David has sent messengers to tell you he is sad. They say he wants to honor your father. But the real reason they’ve come is to look the city over. They want to destroy it.” 4 So Hanun grabbed David’s messengers. He shaved off half of each man’s beard. He cut their clothes off just below the waist and left them half naked. Then he sent them away.
5 David was told about it. So he sent messengers to his men because they were filled with shame. King David said to them, “Stay at Jericho until your beards grow out again. Then come back here.”
9 That’s why we have not stopped praying for you. We have been praying for you since the day we heard about you. We keep asking God to fill you with the knowledge of what he wants. We pray he will give you the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives. 10 Then you will be able to lead a life that is worthy of the Lord. We pray that you will please him in every way. So we want you to bear fruit in every good thing you do. We pray that you will grow to know God better. 11 We want you to be very strong, in keeping with his glorious power. We want you to be patient. We pray that you will never give up. 12 We want you to give thanks with joy to the Father. He has made you fit to have what he will give to all his holy people. You will all receive a share in the kingdom of light. 13 He has saved us from the kingdom of darkness. He has brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. 14 Because of what the Son has done, we have been set free. Because of him, all our sins have been forgiven.
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