Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 14
The Fool
(Psalm 53)
Heading
For the choir director. By David.
A Description of the Fool
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt. They do disgusting things.
There is no one who does good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on all the children of Adam
to see if there is anyone who understands, anyone who seeks God.
3 Every one of them has turned away.
Altogether they have become rotten.
There is no one who does good.
There is not even one.
The Final Fate of the Fool
4 Don’t any of these evildoers understand,
those who devour my people as if they were eating bread?
They do not call on the Lord.
5 There they are! They are terrified
because God is present in the circle of the righteous.
6 You try to put the plans of the poor to shame,
but the Lord is their refuge.
Closing Prayer
7 Who will provide salvation for Israel from Zion?[a]
When the Lord restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
The War With Ammon
10 After this, the king of the Ammonites died, and his son Hanun became king in his place.
2 David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent his officials to express condolences to Hanun concerning his father. David’s officials arrived in the land of the Ammonites.
3 But the officials of the Ammonites said to Hanun their master, “Do you really think David was honoring your father when he sent messengers to express his sympathy to you? No, David sent his officials to you in order to gather information about the city and to spy on it, in order to overthrow it.”
4 So Hanun seized the officials of David, shaved off half of each one’s beard, cut off their clothing up to their buttocks, and sent them away.
5 David was told about this, and he sent messengers to meet them because the men were deeply humiliated. The king said, “Stay in Jericho until your beards have grown. Then return.”
9 For this reason, from the day we heard about your love, we also have not stopped praying for you. We keep asking that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, 10 so that you might live in a way that is worthy of the Lord. Our goal is that you please him by bearing fruit in every kind of good work and by growing in the knowledge of God, 11 as you are being strengthened with all power because of his glorious might working in you. Then you will have complete endurance and patience, joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who qualified us[a] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
What the Father Did Through Christ
13 The Father rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption,[b] the forgiveness of sins.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.