Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
This is for the music leader, and he should use special music.
David wrote this prayer when he ran away from King Saul to hide in a cave.
A prayer for help[a]
57 God, please be kind to me and help me!
Please help me!
I have come to you to keep me safe.
Until the danger has gone, keep me near to you,
in the way that birds protect their babies under their wings.
2 I will call to the Most High God to help me.
He is the God who stands beside me.
3 He will send help from heaven
and he will save me.
He will punish the people who attack me.
Selah.
God will show me his faithful love,
and he will do what he has promised.
4 My enemies are all round me,
like hungry lions!
I must lie down among wild animals,
that want to eat me!
They are men who use spears and arrows
to bite like teeth.
They use their tongues to hurt people,
like sharp swords.
5 God, show how great you are,
high above the sky!
Let everybody on the earth see your glory!
6 My enemies have prepared a trap to catch me.
That makes me very upset.
They have dug a deep hole on the path where I walk.
But they have fallen into it themselves!
Selah.
7 God, I have decided to trust you always.
Yes, I will trust you!
I will sing songs to praise you!
8 I will wake up now!
I will pick up my harp and my lyre.
I will make music as the sun rises![b]
9 My Lord, I will thank you
in front of all the people.
I will sing to praise you,
so that all nations hear.
10 Your faithful love is great,
higher than the skies.
Your truth reaches beyond the clouds.
11 God, show how great you are,
high above the sky!
Let everybody on the earth see your glory!
David runs away from Jerusalem
13 Somebody brought this message to David: ‘The Israelites are now faithful to Absalom instead of you.’
14 So David said to the officers who were with him in Jerusalem, ‘We must go! We must run away! If we do not do that, no one will escape from Absalom. Hurry, or he will quickly catch us here. Then he will destroy us and our whole city!’
15 The king's officers answered, ‘Our lord the king, we will do anything that you decide is right.’
16 So the king left home. He took all his servants and family with him. But he left ten of his slave wives to take care of the palace. 17 As King David and all his people were leaving, they stopped at the last house on the edge of Jerusalem. 18 All his officers and his personal guards, the Kerethites and Pelethites, went on past him. There were also 600 men who had come with him from Gath. All these people were leaving Jerusalem with the king.
19 Then the king asked Ittai, who came from Gath, ‘Why are you coming with us? Go back into the city and join with Absalom, the new king. You have come from another country and you live here as a foreigner. 20 It seems like only a few days since you arrived here. There is no reason for you to travel with us. I do not even know where we are going! So you should go back. Take your men with you. I pray that the Lord will keep you safe with his faithful love.’
21 But Ittai replied to the king, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and as surely as you live, I promise that I will go with you, sir. Wherever you go, I will be there with you. My lord the king, I will stay with you, even if it brings death.’
22 So David said to Ittai, ‘Go on ahead of me.’ So Ittai, with all his men and their families, went on ahead of David.
23 As David and his men left the city, all the people who saw them wept loudly. The king went across the Kidron Valley and his men followed him. They travelled along the road towards the desert.
24 Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, were with them. The Levites were also there, and they were carrying God's Covenant Box. They put it down on the ground while all the people left the city. After all the people had passed, they picked it up again.
25 Then the king said to Zadok, ‘Take the Covenant Box back into the city. If the Lord is pleased with me, he will bring me back here again. The Lord will let me see the Covenant Box again, as well as his home. 26 But if he is not pleased with me, then he must do to me whatever he decides is right.’
27 Then the king said to Zadok the priest, ‘You do not know what will happen. So go safely back into the city, both you and Abiathar. Take your son Ahimaaz and Abiathar's son Jonathan with you. 28 I will wait at the place in the desert where we go across the river. I will wait there until I receive a message from you.’ 29 So Zadok and Abiathar took the Covenant Box back into Jerusalem. They stayed there.
David sends Hushai to Jerusalem
30 But David continued to go up the Mount of Olives.[a] He was weeping as he went. He had covered his head and he was not wearing any shoes on his feet. All the people with him also covered their heads and they wept as they went up the hill. 31 Someone told David that his advisor, Ahithophel, had now joined with Absalom and his men. So David prayed, ‘Lord, please cause Ahithophel to give them foolish advice.’
Be very careful how you live
5 You are God's children and he loves you very much. So you must try to be like him. 2 Show that you love other people. Remember how much Christ loved us. He gave himself as a sacrifice on our behalf. He offered himself in a way that pleased God, like a sacrifice with a lovely smell.
3 So, as God's people, you must never have sex with anyone that you are not married to. Do not do any kind of disgusting thing like that. Do not want many things for yourselves, just to make you happy. That is not how God's people should live. 4 Do not speak in a way which uses dirty words. Do not talk about silly things, like fools do. It is not right for God's people to talk like that. Instead, you should speak in a way which shows that you are thanking God.
5 You can be sure about this: If anyone has sex in a wrong way, that person does not belong to God's people. Nobody who does any kind of disgusting thing belongs to God's people. People who want many things just to please themselves are like people who worship an idol. They also do not belong to God's people. Nobody like that belongs to the kingdom where Christ and God rule. They will not receive the good things that God has prepared for his people.
6 Do not let anyone have a chance to deceive you with a false message about those kinds of bad things. God will certainly punish people who do not obey him. 7 So keep away from those kinds of people. 8 Once your minds were completely in the dark. But now you belong to the Lord. As a result, you have become full of light. So now you must live as people who belong to the light. 9 The light helps you to live in a way that is good, right and true. 10 You should learn more and more to do the things that please the Lord. 11 People whose minds are in the dark do things that have no good purpose. Keep away from wrong things like that. Instead, show how bad those things really are. 12 People like that should be ashamed of the things that they do secretly. Those things are too bad for us even to talk about. 13 But when God's light shines on something, people can see clearly its true nature. 14 Everything that becomes clear to see is in the light. That is why it says:
‘Wake up, you people who are asleep!
Rise up from among the dead people!
Then Christ will shine his light on you.’[a]
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