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Psalm 48

1  Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, ♦︎
   in the city of our God.
2  His holy mountain is fair and lifted high, ♦︎
   the joy of all the earth.
3  On Mount Zion, the divine dwelling place, ♦︎
   stands the city of the great king.
4  In her palaces God has shown himself ♦︎
   to be a sure refuge.
5  For behold, the kings of the earth assembled ♦︎
   and swept forward together.
6  They saw, and were dumbfounded; ♦︎
   dismayed, they fled in terror.
7  Trembling seized them there;
      they writhed like a woman in labour, ♦︎
   as when the east wind shatters the ships of Tarshish.
8  As we had heard, so have we seen
      in the city of the Lord of hosts, the city of our God: ♦︎
   God has established her for ever.
9  We have waited on your loving-kindness, O God, ♦︎
   in the midst of your temple.
10  As with your name, O God,
      so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth; ♦︎
   your right hand is full of justice.
11  Let Mount Zion rejoice and the daughters of Judah be glad, ♦︎
   because of your judgements, O Lord.
12  Walk about Zion and go round about her;
      count all her towers; ♦︎
   consider well her bulwarks; pass through her citadels,
13  That you may tell those who come after
      that such is our God for ever and ever. ♦︎
   It is he that shall be our guide for evermore.

God’s Response and Promise

¹⁸ Then the Lord became jealous for his land,
   and had pity on his people.
¹⁹ In response to his people the Lord said:
I am sending you
   grain, wine, and oil,
   and you will be satisfied;
and I will no more make you
   a mockery among the nations.

²⁰ I will remove the northern army far from you,
   and drive it into a parched and desolate land,
its front into the eastern sea,
   and its rear into the western sea;
its stench and foul smell will rise up.
   Surely he has done great things!

²¹ Do not fear, O soil;
   be glad and rejoice,
   for the Lord has done great things!
²² Do not fear, you animals of the field,
   for the pastures of the wilderness are green;
the tree bears its fruit,
   the fig tree and vine give their full yield.

²³ O children of Zion, be glad
   and rejoice in the Lord your God;
for he has given the early rain^* for your vindication,
   he has poured down for you abundant rain,
   the early and the later rain, as before.
²⁴ The threshing-floors shall be full of grain,
   the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

²⁵ I will repay you for the years
   that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
   my great army, which I sent against you.

²⁶ You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
   and praise the name of the Lord your God,
   who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
²⁷ You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
   and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other.
And my people shall never again
   be put to shame.

God’s Spirit Poured Out

^{28 *}Then afterwards
   I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
   your old men shall dream dreams,
   and your young men shall see visions.
²⁹ Even on the male and female slaves,
   in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

Proclaiming Christ Crucified

2When I came to you, brothers and sisters,^* I did not come proclaiming the mystery^* of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. ²For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. ³And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. ⁴My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom,^* but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

The True Wisdom of God

6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. ⁷But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹But, as it is written,
‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
   nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him’—
¹⁰these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.