Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 142
A contemplative prayer[a] of David while he hid in a cave.
1 I call out loudly to the Eternal One;
I lift my voice to the Eternal begging for His favor.
2 I let everything that’s going wrong spill out of my mouth;
I spell out all my troubles to Him.
3 When my spirit buckled under the burdens I bear,
You knew my way.
They conspired to trip me up and trap me
on the path where I was walking.
4 Take a look around and see—to the right, to the left—
no one is there who cares for me.
There’s no way out of here;
no one cares about the state of my soul.
5 You are the One I called to, O Eternal One.
I said, “You’re the only safe place I know;
You’re all I’ve got in this world.
6 Oh, let me know that You hear my cry
because I’m languishing and desperate;
Rescue me from those who torment me
because there’s no way I can stand up to them;
they are much too strong for me.
7 Lift my captive soul from this dark prison
so I may render to You my gratitude;
Then Your righteous people will gather around me
because You will treat me with astounding goodness.”
12 Woe to him who builds a city on bloodshed
and who establishes a town by injustice!
13 Look! Is it not because of the Eternal, the Commander of heavenly armies,
that all the people work for is consumed in fire
And that all the nations produce comes to nothing?
14 For as the waters cover the sea,
the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge
That the Eternal is glorious and powerful.
15 Woe to you who gives his neighbors a drink,
who keeps filling their cup with your anger and malice
To intoxicate them so you can uncover their shame
and look at their nakedness!
16 Instead of honor, you are going to have your fill of shame.
Now drink up and expose your own uncircumcised nakedness, your lack of God’s mark.
The cup in the Eternal’s right hand will come around to you,
and disgrace will eclipse your current glory.
17 For the violence done against Lebanon will now overtake you;
the terror you showed the animals in turn will terrorize you.
Because you shed blood and wrought violence in the earth,
you have destroyed cities and all their inhabitants.
18 What use is an idol shaped by its maker?
It is nothing but an image cast in metal; it teaches deception.
For a foolish idol-maker puts faith in his own creation,
a god that cannot speak.
19 Woe to him who says to a block of wood, “Wake up!”
or to a silent stone, “Arise!”
Are inanimate objects your teachers?
Look, it may be covered in gold and silver,
But there is no breath of life inside.
20 But the Eternal One is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silent in His presence.
Sexual sin is always painful, but incest decimates families and communities, and it leaves people isolated and angry. The danger for believers who understand the reality of sin is that they may lose sight of redemption and become complacent in their brokenness. In Corinth the believers have become so complacent that they are ignoring the incest in their community. The church’s reputation is beginning to suffer among outsiders.
Church discipline if properly done accomplishes two things: first, it protects the community from harm caused by the sin; second, it can lead to a restoration of the sinner to God and the community. Ignoring the sin actually makes the lives of the sinners worse. Real love confronts the sin and leads the sinners toward redemption and wholeness.
9 In the letter I wrote to you previously, I made it clear that you are not to band together with those who have embraced immoral lives. 10 Don’t misunderstand; I’m not telling you to hole up and hunker down from the rest of the world. That’s impossible. The world is filled with immoral people consumed by their desire for more; they steal from one another without hesitation and will worship man-made idols with no shame at all. If you attempted to avoid these people, you would have to leave the world itself. 11 What I was saying is that you should not associate with someone who calls himself a brother or sister but lives contrary to all we stand for: committing immoral sexual acts, consumed with desire for more, worshiping tangible lifeless things, using profanity, drinking into oblivion, swindling and cheating others. Do not even sit at the table with a person like this. 12 Why would I ever attempt to judge those outside the church? Aren’t we called to judge those within the church? 13 God judges the outsiders. Your job is this: “Expel the wicked from your own community.”[a]
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.