Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 26

[A Psalm] of David.

¹ Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity; I have [expectantly] trusted in, leaned on, and relied on the Lord without wavering and I shall not slide.

² Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; test my heart and my mind.

³ For Your loving-kindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth [faithfully].

⁴ I do not sit with false persons, nor fellowship with pretenders;

⁵ I hate the company of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked.

⁶ I will wash my hands in innocence, and go about Your altar, O Lord,

⁷ That I may make the voice of thanksgiving heard and may tell of all Your wondrous works.

⁸ Lord, I love the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells.

⁹ Gather me not with sinners and sweep me not away [with them], nor my life with bloodthirsty men,

¹⁰ In whose hands is wickedness, and their right hands are full of bribes.

¹¹ But as for me, I will walk in my integrity; redeem me and be merciful and gracious to me.

¹² My foot stands on an even place; in the congregations will I bless the Lord.

4 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

² If we venture to converse with you, will you be offended? Yet who can restrain himself from speaking?

³ Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands.

⁴ Your words have held firm him who was falling, and you have strengthened the feeble knees.

⁵ But now it is come upon you, and you faint and are grieved; it touches you, and you are troubled and dismayed.

⁶ Is not your [reverent] fear of God your confidence and the integrity and uprightness of your ways your hope?

⁷ Think [earnestly], I beg of you: who, being innocent, ever perished? Or where were those upright and in right standing with God cut off?

⁸ As I myself have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble and mischief reap the same.

⁹ By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.

¹⁰ The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken.

¹¹ The old and strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad.

¹² Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and my ear received a whisper of it.

¹³ In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

¹⁴ Fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

¹⁵ Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up!

¹⁶ [The spirit] stood still, but I could not discern the appearance of it. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, and then I heard a voice, saying,

¹⁷ Can mortal man be just before God, or be more right than He is? Can a man be pure before his Maker, or be more cleansed than He is?^(A)

¹⁸ Even in His [heavenly] servants He puts no trust or confidence, and His angels He charges with folly and error—

¹⁹ How much more those who dwell in houses (bodies) of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.

²⁰ Between morning and evening they are destroyed; without anyone noticing it they perish forever.

²¹ Is not their tent cord plucked up within them [so that the tent falls]? Do they not die, and that without [acquiring] wisdom?

8 Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.^(A)

² For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and of death.

³ For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh [^[a]the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit]. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh [^[b]subdued, overcame, ^[c]deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice],^(B)

⁴ So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met in us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit].

⁵ For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and ^[d]pursue those things which gratify the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and ^[e]seek those things which gratify the [Holy] Spirit.

⁶ Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that ^[f]comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever].

⁷ [That is] because the mind of the flesh [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God’s Law; indeed it cannot.

⁸ So then those who are living the life of the flesh [catering to the appetites and impulses of their carnal nature] cannot please or satisfy God, or be acceptable to Him.

⁹ But you are not living the life of the flesh, you are living the life of the Spirit, if the [Holy] Spirit of God [really] dwells within you [directs and controls you]. But if anyone does not possess the [Holy] Spirit of Christ, he is none of His [he does not belong to Christ, is not truly a child of God].^(C)

¹⁰ But if Christ lives in you, [then although] your [natural] body is dead by reason of sin and guilt, the spirit is alive because of [the] righteousness [that He imputes to you].

¹¹ And if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, [then] He Who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also restore to life your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.