Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 11

Faith, Not Flight

Heading

For the choir director. By David.

The Fear of the Fainthearted

David’s Answer

¹⁵ He paneled the inside walls of the building with cedar boards, from the floor of the building to the rafters^[a] of the ceiling. He covered the inside walls with wood. He also covered the floor of the building with boards of fir wood.

¹⁶ Thirty feet from the back wall of the building he built a wall of cedar boards from the floor to the ceiling. He built this wall inside the building to create an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.

¹⁷ The front part of the building became a main room sixty feet long. ¹⁸ Gourds^[b] and open flowers were carved into the cedar on the inside of the building. Everything was covered with cedar. No stone was visible.

¹⁹ He prepared the inner room of the sanctuary inside the building as a place to set the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. ²⁰ The inner sanctuary was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high, and he overlaid it with pure gold.

He also overlaid the cedar altar with gold. ²¹ So Solomon covered the inside of the building with pure gold. He stretched gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid the sanctuary with gold. ²² He overlaid the whole building with gold, until the whole building had been covered. He also overlaid the whole altar, which was in front of the inner sanctuary, with gold.

The Cherubim

²³ For the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim^[c] of olive wood. Each one was fifteen feet tall. ²⁴ Seven and a half feet was the length of one wing of a cherub, and seven and a half feet was the length of the other wing of a cherub. The distance from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other was fifteen feet.^{[d] 25} The other cherub also was fifteen feet wide. Both of the cherubim were the same size and looked the same. ²⁶ One cherub was fifteen feet tall, and so was the other cherub. ²⁷ He set the cherubim inside the inner sanctuary of the house. The wings of the cherubim were stretched out, so that the outer wing of the first one touched the wall, and the outer wing of the other cherub touched the opposite wall, and their wings touched one another in the middle of the room. ²⁸ He overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹ He decorated the walls on all sides of both rooms of the building with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. ³⁰ He overlaid the floor of the building with gold in both the inner and outer rooms.

The Doors

³¹ For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, he made olive wood doors with five-sided frames.^{[e] 32} He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold. He shaped sheets of hammered gold to cover the cherubim and the palm trees.

³³ He did the same for the entrance to the front room. It had door posts of olive wood that were four-sided ³⁴ and two doors of fir wood. The door on one side was made with two folding leaves, and the door on the other side was made with two folding leaves. ³⁵ He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on them, and he overlaid them with gold leaf, shaped to the carvings.

The Courtyard

³⁶ He built the inner courtyard with three courses of cut stone and one course of cedar beams.

³⁷ The foundation of the Lord’s house was laid in the fourth year, in the month named Ziv.^{[f] 38} In the eleventh year, in the month named Bul,^[g] which is the eighth month, all the parts of the house were finished according to all its specifications. Solomon had spent seven years building it.

¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will endure, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷ These things I am instructing you, so that you love one another.

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, for that very reason the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the saying I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too. If they held on to my word, they will hold on to yours as well. ²¹ But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ The one who hates me also hates my Father. ²⁴ If I had not done the works among them that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ This was to fulfill the word which is written in their Law: ‘They hated me for no reason.’^[a]