Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 20

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high [and defend you];

² Send you help from the sanctuary and support, refresh, and strengthen you from Zion;

³ Remember all your offerings and accept your burnt sacrifice. Selah [pause, and think of that]!

⁴ May He grant you according to your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.

⁵ We will [shout in] triumph at your salvation and victory, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.

⁶ Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed; He will answer him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand.

⁷ Some trust in and boast of chariots and some of horses, but we will trust in and boast of the name of the Lord our God.

⁸ They are bowed down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.

⁹ O Lord, give victory; let the King answer us when we call.

25 And the Lord said to Moses,

² Speak to the Israelites, that they take for Me an offering. From every man who gives it willingly and ungrudgingly with his heart you shall take My offering.

³ This is the offering you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze,

⁴ Blue, purple, and scarlet [stuff] and fine twined linen and goats’ hair,

⁵ Rams’ skins tanned red, goatskins, dolphin or porpoise skins, acacia wood,

⁶ Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil and for sweet incense,

⁷ Onyx stones, and stones for setting in the ephod and in the breastplate.

⁸ Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.^(A)

⁹ And you shall make it according to all that I show you, the pattern of the tabernacle or dwelling and the pattern of all the furniture of it.

¹⁰ They shall make an ark of acacia wood: two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high.

¹¹ You shall overlay the ark with pure gold, inside and out, and make a gold crown, a rim or border, around its top.

¹² You shall cast four gold rings and attach them to the four lower corners of it, two rings on either side.

¹³ You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold,

¹⁴ And put the poles through the rings on the ark’s sides, by which to carry it.

¹⁵ The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it [that the ark be not touched].

¹⁶ And you shall put inside the ark the Testimony [the Ten Commandments] which I will give you.

¹⁷ And you shall make a mercy seat (a covering) of pure gold, two cubits and a half long and a cubit and a half wide.

¹⁸ And you shall make two cherubim (winged angelic figures) of [solid] hammered gold on the two ends of the mercy seat.

¹⁹ Make one cherub on each end, making the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat, on the two ends of it.

²⁰ And the cherubim shall spread out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, facing each other and looking down toward the mercy seat.

²¹ You shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony [the Ten Commandments] that I will give you.

²² There I will meet with you and, from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the Testimony, I will speak intimately with you of all which I will give you in commandment to the Israelites.

2 As for myself, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or ^[a]mystery and secret of God [concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of men] in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom;

² For I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified.

³ And I was in (^[b]passed into a state of) weakness and fear (dread) and great trembling [^[c]after I had come] among you.

⁴ And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive (enticing and plausible) words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the [Holy] Spirit and power [^[d]a proof by the Spirit and power of God, operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emotions and thus persuading them],

⁵ So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy), but in the power of God.

⁶ Yet when we are among the full-grown (spiritually mature Christians who are ripe in understanding), we do impart a [higher] wisdom (the knowledge of the divine plan previously hidden); but it is indeed not a wisdom of this present age or of this world nor of the leaders and rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away.

⁷ But rather what we are setting forth is a wisdom of God once hidden [from the human understanding] and now revealed to us by God—[that wisdom] which God devised and decreed before the ages for our glorification [to lift us into the glory of His presence].

⁸ None of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.

⁹ But, on the contrary, as the Scripture says, What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him [^[e]who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed].^(A)

¹⁰ Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through His Spirit, for the [Holy] Spirit searches diligently, exploring and examining everything, even sounding the profound and bottomless things of God [the ^[f]divine counsels and things hidden and beyond man’s scrutiny].