Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
55 (0) For the leader. With stringed instruments. A maskil of David:
2 (1) Listen, God, to my prayer!
Don’t hide yourself from my plea!
3 (2) Pay attention to me, and answer me!
I am panic-stricken as I make my complaint,
I shudder 4 (3) at how the enemy shouts,
at how the wicked oppress;
for they keep heaping trouble on me
and angrily tormenting me.
5 (4) My heart within me is pounding in anguish,
the terrors of death press down on me,
6 (5) fear and trembling overwhelm me,
horror covers me.
7 (6) I said, “I wish I had wings like a dove!
Then I could fly away and be at rest.
8 (7) Yes, I would flee to a place far off,
I would stay in the desert. (Selah)
9 (8) I would quickly find me a shelter
from the raging wind and storm.”
10 (9) Confuse, Adonai, confound their speech!
For I see violence and fighting in the city.
11 (10) Day and night they go about its walls;
within are malice and mischief.
12 (11) Ruin is rife within it,
oppression and fraud never leave its streets.
13 (12) For it was not an enemy who insulted me;
if it had been, I could have borne it.
It was not my adversary who treated me with scorn;
if it had been, I could have hidden myself.
14 (13) But it was you, a man of my own kind,
my companion, whom I knew well.
15 (14) We used to share our hearts with each other;
in the house of God we walked with the crowd.
15 Then Elifaz the Teimani spoke:
2 “Should a wise man answer with hot-air arguments?
Should he fill up his belly with the hot east wind?
3 Should he reason with useless talk
or make speeches that do him no good?
4 “Why, you are abolishing fear of God
and hindering prayer to him!
5 Your iniquity is teaching you how to speak,
and deceit is your language of choice.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, not I;
your own lips testify against you.
7 “Were you the firstborn of the human race,
brought forth before the hills?
8 Do you listen in on God’s secrets?
Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
9 What do you know that we don’t know?
What discernment do you have that we don’t?
10 With us are gray-haired men, old men,
men much older than your father.
11 Are the comfortings of God not enough for you,
or a word that deals gently with you?
12 Why does your heart carry you away,
and why do your eyes flash angrily,
13 so that you turn your spirit against God
and let such words escape your mouth?
14 “What is a human being, that he could be innocent,
someone born from a woman, that he could be righteous?
15 God doesn’t trust even his holy ones;
no, even the heavens are not innocent in his view.
16 How much less one loathesome and corrupt,
a human being, who drinks iniquity like water.
17 “I will tell you — hear me out!
I will recount what I have seen;
18 wise men have told it,
and it wasn’t hidden from their fathers either,
19 to whom alone the land was given —
no foreigner passed among them.
20 “The wicked is in torment all his life,
for all the years allotted to the tyrant.
21 Terrifying sounds are in his ears;
in prosperity, robbers swoop down on him.
22 He despairs of returning from darkness —
he is destined to meet the sword.
23 He wanders and looks for food, which isn’t there.
He knows the day of darkness is ready, at hand.
24 Distress and anguish overwhelm him,
assaulting him like a king about to enter battle.
25 “He raises his hand against God
and boldly defies Shaddai,
26 running against him with head held high
and thickly ornamented shield.
27 “He lets his face grow gross and fat,
and the rest of him bulges with blubber;
28 he lives in abandoned cities,
in houses no one would inhabit,
houses about to become ruins;
29 therefore he will not remain rich,
his wealth will not endure,
his produce will not bend
[the grain stalks] to the earth.
30 “He will not escape from darkness.
The flame will dry up his branches.
By a breath from the mouth of [God],
he will go away.
31 Let him not rely on futile methods,
thereby deceiving himself;
for what he will receive in exchange
will be only futility.
32 This will be accomplished in advance of its day.
His palm frond will not be fresh and green;
33 he will be like a vine that sheds its unripe grapes,
like an olive tree that drops its flowers.
34 “For the community of the ungodly is sterile;
fire consumes the tents of bribery.
35 They conceive trouble and give birth to evil;
their womb prepares deceit.”
27 “You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Do not commit adultery.’[a] 28 But I tell you that a man who even looks at a woman with the purpose of lusting after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye makes you sin, gouge it out and throw it away! Better that you should lose one part of you than have your whole body thrown into Gei-Hinnom. 30 And if your right hand makes you sin, cut it off and throw it away! Better that you should lose one part of you than have your whole body thrown into Gei-Hinnom.
31 “It was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a get.’[b] 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, makes her an adulteress; and that anyone who marries a divorcee commits adultery.
33 “Again, you have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Do not break your oath,’ and ‘Keep your vows to Adonai.’[c] 34 But I tell you not to swear at all — not ‘by heaven,’ because it is God’s throne; 35 not ‘by the earth,’ because it is his footstool;[d] and not ‘by Yerushalayim,’ because it is the city of the Great King.[e] 36 And don’t swear by your head, because you can’t make a single hair white or black.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.