Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 75

To the Chief Musician; [set to the tune of] “Do Not Destroy.” A Psalm of Asaph. A song.

¹ We give praise and thanks to You, O God, we praise and give thanks; Your wondrous works declare that Your ^[a]Name is near and they who invoke Your Name rehearse Your wonders.

² When the proper time has come [for executing My judgments], I will judge uprightly [says the Lord].

³ When the earth totters, and all the inhabitants of it, it is I Who will poise and keep steady its pillars. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁴ I said to the arrogant and boastful, Deal not arrogantly [do not boast]; and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn [of personal aggrandizement].

⁵ Lift not up your [aggressive] horn on high, speak not with a stiff neck and insolent arrogance.

⁶ For not from the east nor from the west nor from the south come promotion and lifting up.^(A)

⁷ But God is the Judge! He puts down one and lifts up another.

⁸ For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup [of His wrath], and the wine foams and is red, well mixed; and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth must drain it and drink its dregs.^(B)

⁹ But I will declare and rejoice forever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.

¹⁰ All the horns of the ungodly also will I cut off [says the Lord], but the horns of the [uncompromisingly] righteous shall be exalted.

¹⁵ When the sons of the prophets who were [watching] at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. And they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

¹⁶ And they said to him, Behold now, there are among your servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray you, and seek your master. It may be that the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him on some mountain or into some valley. And he said, You shall not send.

¹⁷ But when they urged him till he was embarrassed, he said, Send. So they sent fifty men, who sought for three days but did not find him.

¹⁸ When they returned to Elisha, who had waited at Jericho, he said to them, Did I not tell you, Do not go?

¹⁹ And the men of the city said to Elisha, Behold, inhabiting of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad and the locality causes miscarriage and barrenness [in all animals].

²⁰ He said, Bring me a new bowl and put salt [the symbol of God’s purifying power] in it. And they brought it to him.

²¹ Then Elisha went to the spring of the waters and cast the salt in it and said, Thus says the Lord: I [not the salt] have healed these waters; there shall not be any more death, miscarriage or barrenness [and bereavement] because of it.

²² So the waters were healed to this day, as Elisha had said.

⁷ Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the message which you have heard [the ^[a]doctrine of salvation through Christ].

⁸ Yet I am writing you a new commandment, which is true (is realized) in Him and in you, because the darkness (^[b]moral blindness) is clearing away and the true Light (^[c]the revelation of God in Christ) is already shining.

⁹ Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, ^[d]born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now.

¹⁰ Whoever loves his brother [believer] abides (lives) in the Light, and in It or in him there is no occasion for stumbling or cause for error or sin.

¹¹ But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother [^[e]in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.