Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A song of David.
26 Lord, you be the judge and prove that I have lived a pure life.
I have depended on you, Lord, to keep me from falling.
2 Look closely at me, Lord, and test me.
Judge my deepest thoughts and emotions.
3 I always remember your faithful love.
I depend on your faithfulness.
4 I don’t run around with troublemakers.
I have nothing to do with hypocrites.
5 I hate being around evil people.
I refuse to join those gangs of crooks.
6 Lord, I wash my hands to make myself pure,
so that I can come to your altar.
7 I sing a song to give you thanks,
and I tell about all the wonderful things you have done.
8 Lord, I love the house[a] where you live,
the place where your glory is.
9 Lord, don’t treat me like one of those sinners.
Don’t kill me with those murderers.
10 They are guilty of cheating people.
They take bribes to do wrong.
11 But I am innocent,
so be kind to me and save me.
12 I am safe from all danger
as I stand here praising you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.
Eliphaz Speaks
4 Eliphaz from Teman answered:
2 “I must say something.
Would it upset you if I speak?
3 Job, you have taught many people.
You encouraged those who were ready to quit.
4 Your words helped those who were ready to fall.
You gave strength to those who could not stand by themselves.
5 But now trouble comes to you,
and you are discouraged.
Trouble hits you,
and you are upset.
6 You worship God.
You trust him.
You are a good man,
so let that be your hope.
7 Can you think of any innocent person who was ever destroyed?
Do you know of any place where good people are punished?
8 Yes, I have seen people whose lives were cut short,
but they were evil troublemakers.
9 They lost the breath God gave them.
They were cut off from his breath of life.
10 They were like roaring lions,
like growling lions with broken teeth—
11 like a lioness that cannot find prey.
They died, and their cubs starved to death.
12 “I happened to hear a message.
My ears caught a whisper of it.
13 Like a bad dream[a] in the night,
it ruined my sleep.
14 It frightened me,
and I trembled down to my bones.
15 A spirit passed by my face.
The hair on my body stood up!
16 The spirit stood still,
but I could not see what it was.
A shape stood before my eyes,
and there was silence.
Then I heard a quiet voice:
17 ‘A person cannot be more right than God.
People cannot be more pure than their Maker.
18 Look, God cannot even trust his heavenly servants.
He sees faults even in his angels.
19 So surely people are worse!
They live in houses of clay[b] built on dust.
They can be crushed as easily as a moth!
20 From dawn to sunset people are destroyed.
They die—gone forever—and no one even notices.
21 The ropes of their tent are pulled up,
and they die before gaining wisdom.’
Life in the Spirit
8 So now anyone who is in Christ Jesus is not judged guilty. 2 That is because in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you[a] free. It made you free from the law that brings sin and death. 3 The law was without power because it was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do: He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that everyone else uses for sin. God sent him to be an offering to pay for sin. So God used a human life to destroy sin. 4 He did this so that we could be right just as the law said we must be. Now we don’t live following our sinful selves. We live following the Spirit.
5 People who live following their sinful selves think only about what they want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about what the Spirit wants them to do. 6 If your thinking is controlled by your sinful self, there is spiritual death. But if your thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. 7 Why is this true? Because anyone whose thinking is controlled by their sinful self is against God. They refuse to obey God’s law. And really they are not able to obey it. 8 Those who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.
9 But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. 10 Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God. 11 God raised Jesus from death. And if God’s Spirit lives in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. Yes, God is the one who raised Christ from death, and he will raise you to life through his Spirit living in you.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International