Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A shiggaion [a] by David; he sang it to the Lord about the ⌞slanderous⌟ words of Cush, a descendant of Benjamin.
7 O Lord my God, I have taken refuge in you.
Save me, and rescue me from all who are pursuing me.
2 Like a lion they will tear me to pieces
and drag me off with no one to rescue me.
3 O Lord my God,
if I have done this—
if my hands are stained with injustice,
4 if I have paid back my friend with evil
or rescued someone who has no reason to attack me—
5 then let the enemy chase me and catch me.
Let him trample my life into the ground.
Let him lay my honor in the dust. Selah
6 Arise in anger, O Lord.
Stand up against the fury of my attackers.
Wake up, my God.[b]
You have already pronounced judgment.
7 Let an assembly of people gather around you.
Take your seat high above them.
8 The Lord judges the people of the world.
Judge me, O Lord,
according to my righteousness,
according to my integrity.
9 Let the evil within wicked people come to an end,
but make the righteous person secure,
O righteous God who examines thoughts and emotions.
10 My shield is God above,
who saves those whose motives are decent.
11 God is a fair judge,
a God who is angered by injustice every day.
12 If a person does not change, God sharpens his sword.
By bending his bow, he makes it ready ⌞to shoot⌟.
13 He prepares his deadly weapons
and turns them into flaming arrows.
14 See how that person conceives evil,
is pregnant with harm,
and gives birth to lies.
15 He digs a pit and shovels it out.
Then he falls into the hole that he made ⌞for others⌟.
16 His mischief lands back on his own head.
His violence comes down on top of him.
17 I will give thanks to the Lord for his righteousness.
I will make music to praise the name of the Lord Most High.
6 I left you with nothing to eat in any of your cities.
I left you with no food in your entire land.
And you still didn’t return to me, declares the Lord.
7 I stopped the rain from falling
three months before the harvest.
I sent rain on one city and not on another.
One field had rain.
Another field had none and dried up.
8 So people from two or three cities staggered
as they walked to another city in order to get a drink of water.
But they couldn’t get enough.
And you still didn’t return to me, declares the Lord.
9 I struck your ⌞crops⌟ with blight and mildew.
Locusts repeatedly devoured your gardens, vineyards,
fig trees, and olive trees.
And you still didn’t return to me, declares the Lord.
10 I sent plagues on you as I did to Egypt.
With swords I killed your best young men along with your captured horses.
I made the stench from your camps fill your noses.
And you still didn’t return to me, declares the Lord.
11 I destroyed some of you as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a burning log snatched from a fire.
And you still didn’t return to me, declares the Lord.
12 This is what I will do to you, Israel.
Prepare to meet your God.
This is what I will do to you, Israel!
13 God forms the mountains and creates the wind.
He reveals his thoughts to humans.
He makes dawn and dusk ⌞appear⌟.
He walks on the high places of the earth.
His name is the Lord God of Armies.
Love One Another
11 The message that you have heard from the beginning is to love each other. 12 Don’t be like Cain. He was a child of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain murder his brother? Because the things Cain did were evil and the things his brother did had God’s approval. 13 Brothers and sisters, don’t be surprised if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love other believers. The person who doesn’t grow in love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates another believer is a murderer, and you know that a murderer doesn’t have eternal life.
16 We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers. 17 Now, suppose a person has enough to live on and notices another believer in need. How can God’s love be in that person if he doesn’t bother to help the other believer?
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