Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A psalm by David.
29 Give to the Lord, you heavenly beings.
Give to the Lord glory and power.
2 Give to the Lord the glory his name deserves.
Worship the Lord in ⌞his⌟ holy splendor.
3 The voice of the Lord rolls over the water.
The God of glory thunders.
The Lord shouts over raging water.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful.
The voice of the Lord is majestic.
5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars.
The Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon skip along like a calf
and Mount Sirion like a wild ox.
7 The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning.
8 The voice of the Lord makes the wilderness tremble.
The Lord makes the wilderness of Kadesh tremble.
9 The voice of the Lord splits the oaks
and strips ⌞the trees of⌟ the forests bare.
Everyone in his temple is saying, “Glory!”
10 The Lord sat enthroned over the flood.
The Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
11 The Lord will give power to his people.
The Lord will bless his people with peace.
The Spokesman Studies Laughter
2 I thought to myself, “Now I want to experiment with pleasure and enjoy myself.” But even this was pointless.
2 I thought, “Laughter doesn’t make any sense. What does pleasure accomplish?”
The Spokesman Studies Wine
3 I explored ways to make myself feel better by drinking wine. I also explored ways to do ⌞some⌟ foolish things. During all that time, wisdom continued to control my mind. I was able to determine whether this was good for mortals to do during their brief lives under heaven.
The Spokesman Studies Personal Achievements
4 I accomplished some great things:
I built houses for myself.
I planted vineyards for myself.
5 I made gardens and parks for myself.
I planted every kind of fruit tree in them.
6 I made pools to water the forest of growing trees.
7 I bought male and female slaves.
In addition, slaves were born in my household.
I owned more herds and flocks
than anyone in Jerusalem before me.
8 I also gathered silver and gold for myself.
I gathered the treasures of kings and provinces.
I provided myself with male and female singers
and the pleasures men have with one concubine [a] after another.
9 So I grew richer than anyone in Jerusalem before me. Yet, my wisdom remained with me. 10 If something appealed to me, I did it. I allowed myself to have any pleasure I wanted, since I found pleasure in my work. This was my reward for all my hard work.
11 But when I turned to look at all that I had accomplished and all the hard work I had put into it, I saw that it was all pointless. ⌞It was like⌟ trying to catch the wind. I gained nothing ⌞from any of my accomplishments⌟ under the sun.
2 Brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn’t speak about God’s mystery [a] as if it were some kind of brilliant message or wisdom. 2 While I was with you, I decided to deal with only one subject—Jesus Christ, who was crucified. 3 When I came to you, I was weak. I was afraid and very nervous. 4 I didn’t speak my message with persuasive intellectual arguments. I spoke my message with a show of spiritual power 5 so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.
6 However, we do use wisdom to speak to those who are mature. It is a wisdom that doesn’t belong to this world or to the rulers of this world who are in power today and gone tomorrow. 7 We speak about the mystery of God’s wisdom. It is a wisdom that has been hidden, which God had planned for our glory before the world began. 8 Not one of the rulers of this world has known it. If they had, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as Scripture says:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
the things that God has prepared
for those who love him.”
10 God has revealed those things to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, especially the deep things of God.
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