◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous) / Psalm 37:12-22 (The wicked plot against the righteous); 2 Chronicles 9:29-31 (Nathan writes a history); Mark 6:35-44 (Jesus feeds 5000) (New English Translation)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 37:12-22

¹²Evil men plot against the godly^[a]
and viciously attack them.^[b]
¹³The Lord laughs in disgust^[c] at them,
for he knows that their day is coming.^[d]
¹⁴Evil men draw their swords
and prepare their bows,
to bring down^[e] the oppressed and needy,
and to slaughter those who are godly.^[f]
¹⁵Their swords will pierce^[g] their own hearts,
and their bows will be broken.
¹⁶The little bit that a godly man owns is better than
the wealth of many evil men,^[h]
¹⁷for evil men will lose their power,^[i]
but the Lord sustains^[j] the godly.
¹⁸The Lord watches over the innocent day by day,^[k]
and they possess a permanent inheritance.^[l]
¹⁹They will not be ashamed when hard times come;^[m]
when famine comes they will have enough to eat.^[n]
²⁰But^[o] evil men will die;
the Lord’s enemies will be incinerated^[p]—
they will go up in smoke.^[q]
²¹Evil men borrow, but do not repay their debt,
but the godly show compassion and are generous.^[r]
²²Surely^[s] those favored by the Lord^[t] will possess the land,
but those rejected^[u] by him will be wiped out.^[v]

Footnotes

Psalm 37:12 tn Or “innocent.” The singular is used here in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and the typical godly individual are in view.
Psalm 37:12 tn Heb “and gnashes at him with his teeth” (see Ps 35:16). The language may picture the evil men as wild animals. The active participles in v. 12 are used for purposes of dramatic description.
Psalm 37:13 tn Heb “laughs.” As the next line indicates, this refers to derisive laughter (see 2:4). The Hebrew imperfect verbal form describes the action from the perspective of an eye-witness who is watching the divine response as it unfolds before his eyes.
Psalm 37:13 tn Heb “for he sees that his day is coming.” As the following context makes clear (vv. 15, 17, 19-20), “his day” refers to the time when God will destroy evildoers.
Psalm 37:14 tn Heb “to cause to fall.”
Psalm 37:14 tn Heb “the upright in way,” i.e., those who lead godly lives.
Psalm 37:15 tn Heb “enter into.”
Psalm 37:16 tn Heb “Better [is] a little to the godly one than the wealth of many evil ones.” The following verses explain why this is true. Though a godly individual may seem to have only meager possessions, he always has what he needs and will eventually possess the land. The wicked may prosper for a brief time, but will eventually be destroyed by divine judgment and lose everything.
Psalm 37:17 tn Heb “for the arms of the evil ones will be broken.”
Psalm 37:17 tn The active participle here indicates this is characteristically true.
Psalm 37:18 tn Heb “the Lord knows the days of the innocent ones.” He “knows” their days in the sense that he is intimately aware of and involved in their daily struggles. He meets their needs and sustains them.
Psalm 37:18 tn Heb “and their inheritance is forever.”
Psalm 37:19 tn Heb “in a time of trouble.”
Psalm 37:19 tn Heb “in days of famine they will be satisfied.”
Psalm 37:20 tn Or “for,” but Hebrew כִּי (ki) in this case would have to extend all the way back to v. 17a. Another option is to understand the particle as asseverative, “surely” (see v. 22).
Psalm 37:20 tc The meaning of the MT (כִּיקַר כָּרִים [kiqar karim], “like what is precious among the pastures/rams”) is uncertain. One possibility is to take the noun כָּרִים as “pastures” and interpret “what is precious” as referring to flowers that blossom but then quickly disappear (see v. 2 and BDB 430 s.v. יָקָר 3). If כָּרִים is taken as “rams,” then “what is precious” might refer to the choicest portions of rams. The present translation follows a reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QpPs37), כיקוד כורם (“like the burning of an oven”). The next line, which pictures the Lord’s enemies being consumed in smoke, supports this reading, which assumes confusion of the Hebrew letters ר (resh) and ד (dalet) at the end of the first word in the sequence.
Psalm 37:20 tn Heb “they perish in smoke, they perish.” In addition to repeating the verb for emphasis, the psalmist uses the perfect form of the verb to picture the enemies’ demise as if it had already taken place. In this way he draws attention to the certitude of their judgment.
Psalm 37:21 tn Heb “an evil [man] borrows and does not repay, but a godly [man] is gracious and gives.” The singular forms are used in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and godly individual are in view. The three active participles and one imperfect (“repay”) draw attention to the characteristic behavior of the two types.
Psalm 37:22 tn The particle כִּי (ki) is best understood as asseverative or emphatic here.
Psalm 37:22 tn Heb “those blessed by him.” The pronoun “him” must refer to the Lord (see vv. 20, 23), so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.
Psalm 37:22 tn Heb “cursed.”
Psalm 37:22 tn Or “cut off”; or “removed” (see v. 9).

2 Chronicles 9:29-31

Solomon’s Reign Ends

²⁹The rest of the events of Solomon’s reign, from start to finish, are recorded^[a] in the Annals of Nathan the Prophet, the Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and the Vision of Iddo the Seer pertaining to Jeroboam son of Nebat. ³⁰Solomon ruled over all Israel from Jerusalem for forty years. ³¹Then Solomon passed away^[b] and was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam replaced him as king.

Mark 6:35-44

³⁵When it was already late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is an isolated place^[a] and it is already very late. ³⁶Send them away so that they can go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” ³⁷But he answered them,^[b] “You^[c] give them something to eat.” And they said, “Should we go and buy bread for 200 silver coins^[d] and give it to them to eat?” ³⁸He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.” ³⁹Then he directed them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. ⁴⁰So they reclined in groups of hundreds and fifties. ⁴¹He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. He^[e] gave them to his^[f] disciples to serve the people, and he divided the two fish among them all. ⁴²They all ate and were satisfied, ⁴³and they picked up the broken pieces and fish that were left over, twelve baskets full. ⁴⁴Now^[g] there were 5,000 men^[h] who ate the bread.^[i]

Footnotes

Mark 6:35 tn Or “a desert” (meaning a deserted or desolate area with sparse vegetation).
Mark 6:37 tn Grk “answering, he said to them.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokritheis) is redundant, but the syntax of the sentence has been changed for clarity.
Mark 6:37 tn Here the pronoun ὑμεῖς (humeis) is used, making “you” in the translation emphatic.
Mark 6:37 sn The silver coin referred to here is the denarius. A denarius, inscribed with a picture of Tiberius Caesar, was worth approximately one day’s wage for a laborer. Two hundred denarii was thus approximately equal to eight months’ wages. The disciples did not have the resources in their possession to feed the large crowd, so Jesus’ request is his way of causing them to trust him as part of their growth in discipleship.
Mark 6:41 tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
Mark 6:41 tc ‡ Most mss (P⁴⁵ A D W Θ ƒ^1,13 M lat sy) have αὐτοῦ (autou, “his”) after τοῖς μαθηταῖς (tois mathētais, “the disciples”), but several excellent witnesses (א B L Δ 33 579 892 1241 1424) lack the pronoun. This kind of variant is often a predictable expansion of the text; further, that many significant mss lack the pronoun gives support for the shorter reading. For these reasons, the pronoun is considered to be secondary. NA²⁸ puts αὐτοῦ in brackets, indicating some doubts as to its authenticity.tn Grk “the disciples”; the Greek article has been translated here as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).
Mark 6:44 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate a somewhat parenthetical remark by the author.
Mark 6:44 tn The Greek word here is ἀνήρ, meaning “adult male” (BDAG 79 s.v. 1). According to Matt 14:21, Jesus fed not only 5,000 men, but also an unspecified number of women and children.
Mark 6:44 tc Many good mss (P⁴⁵ א D W Θ ƒ^1,13 28 565 700 2542 lat sa) lack τοὺς ἄρτους (tous artous, lit. “the loaves” [here translated “the bread”]). On the other hand, just as weighty mss (A B L 33 M) have the words. Although a decision is not easy, the most satisfactory explanation seems to be that scribes were more prone to delete than to add the words here. They may have been puzzled as to why “the bread” should be mentioned without a corresponding mention of “fish.” Since neither Matt 14:21 or Luke 9:17 explicitly mention the bread, a desire for harmonization may have motivated the copyists as well. On the other hand, D and W are prone to longer, explanatory readings. Since they both lack the words here, it is likely that their archetypes also lacked the words. But given Mark’s pleonastic style, the good witnesses with “the bread,” and a reasonable explanation for the omission, “the bread” is most likely part of the initial text of Mark.

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Footnotes

Solomon’s Reign Ends

Footnotes

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