Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 52
Your Tongue Is a Razor
Heading
For the choir director. A maskil[a] by David.
When Doeg the Edomite went and informed Saul
and said to him, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelek.”[b]
Doeg’s Sin
1 Why do you boast about evil, you hero?
The mercy of God endures all day long.
2 Your tongue plans destruction.
It is like a sharpened razor, you scheming liar.
3 You love evil rather than good. Interlude
You love lying rather than speaking what is right.
4 You lying tongue, you love every word that devours!
Doeg’s Judgment
5 But God will tear you down forever.
He will grab you and pull you out of your tent. Interlude
He will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 Then the righteous will see and fear.
Then they will laugh at him:
7 “Look, here is the man who did not make God his stronghold,
but trusted in the greatness of his wealth.
He grew strong by his destructive deeds!”
David’s Delivery
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.
9 I will thank you forever because you have done this.
I will hope in your name in the presence of your favored ones
because it is good.
The Day of the Lord Brings Darkness
18 Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord!
What good will the Day of the Lord be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
19 It will be as if a man flees from a lion,
but a bear meets him,
or he enters a house and rests his hand on a wall,
but a snake bites him.
20 Will not the Day of the Lord be darkness and not light,
gloom without a trace of brightness?
The Lord Hates Faithless Worship
21 I hate, I reject, your festivals!
I do not delight in the aroma of the sacrifices at your sacred convocations.
22 Even if you offer up to me your whole burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
I will not pay any attention to your fellowship offerings of fattened calves.
23 Get the noise of your songs away from me!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll like the waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
25 Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?
26 You lifted up images of Sakkuth, your king,
and of Kiyyun, your star god, which you made for yourselves.[a]
27 So I will exile you beyond Damascus,
says the Lord, whose name is the God of Armies.
Paul’s Prayer and Praise
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,[a] 15 from whom the entire family in heaven and on earth receives its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner self, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 I pray that you would be able to comprehend, along with all the saints, how wide and long and high and deep his love is, 19 and that you would be able to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him, who is able, according to the power that is at work within us, to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.