Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A song to sing as we climb.
A happy family
128 If people respect the Lord
and they obey his commands,
God has blessed them!
2 You will eat the food that you have worked hard to grow.
You will have everything that you need.
You will be happy!
3 Your wife will be like a vine that grows in your home,
and it gives many grapes.
Your children will sit around your table,
like the branches of an olive tree that are around you.[a]
4 Yes, if a man respects the Lord,
that is how God blesses him.
5 The Lord rules from Zion,
and I pray that he will bless you.[b]
Then you will see that Jerusalem is a good place to live in
for as long as you live.
6 I pray that you will live to see your grandchildren.
May Israel have peace!
27 Do not boast about what you will do tomorrow.
You do not know what might happen.
2 Let other people praise you.
Do not boast about yourself.
3 A stone is heavy to carry and sand also weighs a lot.
But the silly acts of a fool give more pain than both of those.
4 An angry person does cruel things that can destroy people.
But a jealous person is much worse.
5 When a friend is not afraid to warn you that you are wrong,
it shows that he really loves you.
6 You can trust a friend when he says things that hurt you.
But when an enemy kisses you, he is deceiving you.
7 A person who has eaten enough food will refuse honey.
But even bitter food seems sweet to a hungry person.
8 A person who travels away from his home
is like a bird that flies away from its nest.
9 Beautiful oil and perfume may give you joy.
But good advice from a friend is even better.
10 Do not forget your friends or your father's friends.
If you are in trouble, do not ask your relatives to help you.
A friend who is a neighbour will be more help than a relative who lives far away.
11 My son, if you are wise, I will be happy.
I will be able to answer anyone who insults me.
12 A careful person can see danger and he will hide himself.
But a silly person never stops, and he walks into trouble.
13 If someone promises to pay the debts of a stranger,
take his coat as a guarantee that he will pay.
14 If you shout a blessing to your neighbour early in the morning,
he will think it is no better than a curse.
15 A wife who is always arguing with you
is as bad as rain that never stops falling.
16 Can you catch the wind? Can you hold oil in your hand?
No! And you cannot keep that woman quiet.
17 People learn from each other,
as one iron tool can make another one sharp.
18 If you take care of a fig tree, it will give you fruit to eat.
If you take care of your master, he will give you honour.
19 A man can see his face in a mirror.
But his thoughts show what he is really like.
20 The deep hole of death always wants more dead people to fill it.
In the same way, a person wants to have everything that he sees.
21 You need a hot fire to see if silver and gold are pure.
In the same way, when people praise you,
they can see what you are really like.
22 Even if you beat a fool with a big stick, as hard as you beat grain,
you will never remove all his silly ideas.
23 Always take care of your sheep and your goats, as well as your cows. 24 Your riches will not be there for ever. One family does not rule a kingdom for ever. 25 One day you will cut the grass in your fields and then new grass will grow. You will store the grass that has grown on the hills. 26 Then you will use the wool from your sheep to make clothes. You make clothes from your sheep's wool. You will sell your goats, and you will buy a field. 27 You will have enough milk from your goats to feed yourself, your family and your female servants.[a]
8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Be clean in the way that you live. Stop doing wrong things. Make your minds clean. You cannot love sin and love God at the same time. 9 Be sorry about your sins and weep. Stop laughing and instead be sad. Do not be happy but be very upset.
10 Be humble in front of the Lord God. Then he will lift you up to a good place.
11 My Christian friends, do not say bad things against each other. If you speak against another believer, you are really speaking against God's Law. If you judge another believer, then you are judging the law too. When you do that, you are not obeying the Law. You are giving yourself authority to decide what the Law says. 12 God is the one who gave his Law to people. Only he has the authority to judge whether people have done what is right. Only he can decide to save people or to destroy them. So you must not judge your friends. You do not have that authority.
Trust God every day
13 Some of you say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will stay there for a year. We will buy and sell things, and we will become rich.’ If you say things like that, listen to me. 14 You do not know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a cloud which appears for a short time and then it quickly goes away. 15 So what you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord agrees and we are still alive, then we will do this or that.’ 16 But instead, you talk about what you have decided to do. You speak as if you have the power to make it happen. It is wrong to speak like that.
17 So you know the right thing that you ought to do. But if you know that and you do not do the right thing, then you have done a wrong thing.
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