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Psalm 67

1  God be gracious to us and bless us ♦︎
   and make his face to shine upon us,
2  That your way may be known upon earth, ♦︎
   your saving power among all nations.
3  Let the peoples praise you, O God; ♦︎
   let all the peoples praise you.
4  O let the nations rejoice and be glad, ♦︎
   for you will judge the peoples righteously
      and govern the nations upon earth.
5  Let the peoples praise you, O God; ♦︎
   let all the peoples praise you.
6  Then shall the earth bring forth her increase, ♦︎
   and God, our own God, will bless us.
7  God will bless us, ♦︎
   and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.

A Lament for Israel’s Sin

5Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel:
² Fallen, no more to rise,
   is maiden Israel;
forsaken on her land,
   with no one to raise her up.

³ For thus says the Lord God:
The city that marched out a thousand
   shall have a hundred left,
and that which marched out a hundred
   shall have ten left.^*

⁴ For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live;
⁵   but do not seek Bethel,
and do not enter into Gilgal
   or cross over to Beer-sheba;
for Gilgal shall surely go into exile,
   and Bethel shall come to nothing.

⁶ Seek the Lord and live,
   or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire,
   and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.
⁷ Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood,
   and bring righteousness to the ground!

⁸ The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,
   and turns deep darkness into the morning,
   and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea,
   and pours them out on the surface of the earth,
the Lord is his name,
⁹ who makes destruction flash out against the strong,
   so that destruction comes upon the fortress.

¹⁰ They hate the one who reproves in the gate,
   and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.
¹¹ Therefore, because you trample on the poor
   and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
   but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
   but you shall not drink their wine.
¹² For I know how many are your transgressions,
   and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
   and push aside the needy in the gate.
¹³ Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time;
   for it is an evil time.

¹⁴ Seek good and not evil,
   that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
   just as you have said.
¹⁵ Hate evil and love good,
   and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
   will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord:
In all the squares there shall be wailing;
   and in all the streets they shall say, ‘Alas! alas!’
They shall call the farmers to mourning,
   and those skilled in lamentation, to wailing;
¹⁷ in all the vineyards there shall be wailing,
   for I will pass through the midst of you,

says the Lord.

The Ministry of the Apostles

4Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. ²Moreover, it is required of stewards that they should be found trustworthy. ³But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. ⁴I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵Therefore do not pronounce judgement before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

6 I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters,^* so that you may learn through us the meaning of the saying, ‘Nothing beyond what is written’, so that none of you will be puffed up in favour of one against another. ⁷For who sees anything different in you?^* What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! ⁹For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. ¹⁰We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. ¹¹To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, ¹²and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; ¹³when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

Fatherly Admonition

14 I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. ¹⁶I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me. ¹⁷For this reason I sent^* you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church. ¹⁸But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. ¹⁹But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. ²⁰For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. ²¹What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?