Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A song to sing as we climb.

How proverbs help us

1 These are the proverbs of Solomon, David's son, king of Israel.

² These are proverbs that will make you wise. They will help you to learn things and to understand good teaching. ³ They will help you to understand how to live a good life. They will teach you how to live as a person who is good, honest and fair.

⁴ They can cause even silly people to become clever. They teach young people what they should know, so that they can live well.

⁵ Wise people should also listen carefully, so that they learn something new. And people with clever minds can learn to live in a good way.

⁶ People will learn to understand what proverbs and picture stories mean. They will understand the teaching and clever messages of wise people.

Good teaching for life

⁷ If you want to know how to live in a good way, you must first learn to respect the Lord with fear.^[a] Fools refuse to listen to wise teaching.

⁸ Listen, my child, when your father shows you what is right. And do not forget what your mother has taught you. ⁹ Their teaching will bring you honour, like a beautiful crown or a valuable necklace.

Keep away from sin

¹⁰ My child, if sinners want you to join with them, do not agree! ¹¹ They may say, ‘Come with us. We will find someone to murder. We will attack any helpless person that we choose. ¹² We will send them quickly to their graves. They may be strong and healthy, but they will soon be under the earth. ¹³ We will take all their valuable things for ourselves. We will fill our houses with lots of good things. ¹⁴ So come and join us! We will share with each other everything that we rob from other people.’

¹⁵ My child, do not go along with people like that. Stay away from them. ¹⁶ They are in a hurry to do evil things. They cannot wait to murder someone!

¹⁷ Think about it! If you put a trap where the birds can see it, you will never catch anything. ¹⁸ These wicked men hide to attack someone. They are ready to kill someone, but they destroy their own lives! ¹⁹ That is what happens to those who cheat other people to become rich themselves. The riches that they have taken from others will destroy their own lives.

God judges all people in a right way

2 So I say this to each one of you: Do not judge other people. If you decide that someone else has done a bad thing, remember that you also do the same bad things. You are really saying that God should punish you also! When you judge someone, God will not punish them and then forgive you. ² When God judges people, he does it in a way that is right and fair. He punishes people who do those kind of bad things.

³ I ask each of you again: ‘Do you speak against people who do bad things, but you do those same bad things yourself?’ Then God will certainly punish you and you will not go free. ⁴ Remember that God is very kind and patient with us. He waits a long time before he punishes us. Do you not think that that is important? You should understand that God is giving you a chance to change. He waits patiently, so that you may turn away from wrong things.

⁵ But you refuse to change the way that you live. You are not sorry about the wrong things that you have done. As a result, you cause God to become even angrier with you. So he will punish you even more on the day when he will judge everyone. On that day, he will show how angry he is against people who do bad things. Everyone will know that he judges people in a right way. ⁶ He will give to each person what they ought to have because of the things that they have done. ⁷ Some people continue patiently to do good things. They want to do what is right so that God will praise them. They want to live the kind of life which death will not spoil. God will cause people like that to live with him always. ⁸ But other people think only about themselves. They refuse to obey God's true message. Instead, they continue to do things that are wrong. God will be very angry with people like that and he will punish them. ⁹ God will punish everyone who does bad things. He will do that first to the Jews, and he will do it also to the Gentiles. There will be much trouble and pain for every person who does bad things. ¹⁰ But God will praise every person who does good things. He will make them great and they will have peace in their minds. He will do that first for the Jews, and he will do it also for the Gentiles. ¹¹ God is always fair when he judges people, whoever they are.