Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 29^[a]

A Psalm of David.

¹ Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

² Give to the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness or in holy array.

³ The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon many (great) waters.

⁴ The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

⁵ The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

⁶ He makes them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion (Mount Hermon) like a young, wild ox.

⁷ The voice of the Lord splits and flashes forth forked lightning.

⁸ The voice of the Lord makes the wilderness tremble; the Lord shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.

⁹ The voice of the Lord makes the hinds bring forth their young, and His voice strips bare the forests, while in His temple everyone is saying, Glory!

¹⁰ The Lord sat as King over the deluge; the Lord [still] sits as King [and] forever!

¹¹ The Lord will give [unyielding and impenetrable] strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace.

2 I said in my mind, Come now, I will prove you with mirth and test you with pleasure; so have a good time [enjoy pleasure]. But this also was vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility)!^(A)

² I said of laughter, It is mad, and of pleasure, What does it accomplish?

³ I searched in my mind how to cheer my body with wine—yet at the same time having my mind hold its course and guide me with [human] wisdom—and how to lay hold of folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.

⁴ I made great works; I built myself houses, I planted vineyards.

⁵ I made for myself gardens and orchards and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.

⁶ I made for myself pools of water from which to water the forest and make the trees bud.

⁷ I bought menservants and maidservants and had servants born in my house. Also I had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.

⁸ I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces. I got for myself men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men—^[a]concubines very many.^(B)

⁹ So I became great and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me and stood by me.

¹⁰ And whatever my eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my portion and reward for all my toil.

¹¹ Then I looked on all that my hands had done and the labor I had spent in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind and a feeding on it, and there was no profit under the sun.^(C)

2 As for myself, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or ^[a]mystery and secret of God [concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of men] in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom;

² For I resolved to know nothing (to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing) among you except Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and Him crucified.

³ And I was in (^[b]passed into a state of) weakness and fear (dread) and great trembling [^[c]after I had come] among you.

⁴ And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive (enticing and plausible) words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the [Holy] Spirit and power [^[d]a proof by the Spirit and power of God, operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emotions and thus persuading them],

⁵ So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy), but in the power of God.

⁶ Yet when we are among the full-grown (spiritually mature Christians who are ripe in understanding), we do impart a [higher] wisdom (the knowledge of the divine plan previously hidden); but it is indeed not a wisdom of this present age or of this world nor of the leaders and rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away.

⁷ But rather what we are setting forth is a wisdom of God once hidden [from the human understanding] and now revealed to us by God—[that wisdom] which God devised and decreed before the ages for our glorification [to lift us into the glory of His presence].

⁸ None of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.

⁹ But, on the contrary, as the Scripture says, What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him [^[e]who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed].^(A)

¹⁰ Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through His Spirit, for the [Holy] Spirit searches diligently, exploring and examining everything, even sounding the profound and bottomless things of God [the ^[f]divine counsels and things hidden and beyond man’s scrutiny].