Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 56

For the music leader. According to “The Silent Dove of Distant Places.” A miktam^[a] of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

Elijah and the widow from Zarephath

⁸ The Lord’s word came to Elijah: ⁹ Get up and go to Zarephath near Sidon and stay there. I have ordered a widow there to take care of you. ¹⁰ Elijah left and went to Zarephath. As he came to the town gate, he saw a widow collecting sticks. He called out to her, “Please get a little water for me in this cup so I can drink.” ¹¹ She went to get some water. He then said to her, “Please get me a piece of bread.”

¹² “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any food; only a handful of flour in a jar and a bit of oil in a bottle. Look at me. I’m collecting two sticks so that I can make some food for myself and my son. We’ll eat the last of the food and then die.”

¹³ Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go and do what you said. Only make a little loaf of bread for me first. Then bring it to me. You can make something for yourself and your son after that. ¹⁴ This is what Israel’s God, the Lord, says: The jar of flour won’t decrease and the bottle of oil won’t run out until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.” ¹⁵ The widow went and did what Elijah said. So the widow, Elijah, and the widow’s household ate for many days. ¹⁶ The jar of flour didn’t decrease nor did the bottle of oil run out, just as the Lord spoke through Elijah.

Definition of wisdom

⁶ What we say is wisdom to people who are mature. It isn’t a wisdom that comes from the present day or from today’s leaders who are being reduced to nothing. ⁷ We talk about God’s wisdom, which has been hidden as a secret. God determined this wisdom in advance, before time began, for our glory. ⁸ It is a wisdom that none of the present-day rulers have understood, because if they did understand it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory! ⁹ But this is precisely what is written: God has prepared things for those who love him that no eye has seen, or ear has heard, or that haven’t crossed the mind of any human being.^{[a] 10} God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, including the depths of God. ¹¹ Who knows a person’s depths except their own spirit that lives in them? In the same way, no one has known the depths of God except God’s Spirit. ¹² We haven’t received the world’s spirit but God’s Spirit so that we can know the things given to us by God. ¹³ These are the things we are talking about—not with words taught by human wisdom but with words taught by the Spirit—we are interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people. ¹⁴ But people who are unspiritual don’t accept the things from God’s Spirit. They are foolishness to them and can’t be understood, because they can only be comprehended in a spiritual way. ¹⁵ Spiritual people comprehend everything, but they themselves aren’t understood by anyone. ¹⁶ Who has known the mind of the Lord, who will advise him?^[b] But we have the mind of Christ.