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Psalm 7

Plea for Help against Persecutors

A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.
¹ O Lord my God, in you I take refuge;
   save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,
² or like a lion they will tear me apart;
   they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.

³ O Lord my God, if I have done this,
   if there is wrong in my hands,
⁴ if I have repaid my ally with harm
   or plundered my foe without cause,
⁵ then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,
   trample my life to the ground,
   and lay my soul in the dust.
          Selah

⁶ Rise up, O Lord, in your anger;
   lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
   awake, O my God;^* you have appointed a judgement.
⁷ Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you,
   and over it take your seat^* on high.
⁸ The Lord judges the peoples;
   judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
   and according to the integrity that is in me.

⁹ O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
   but establish the righteous,
you who test the minds and hearts,
   O righteous God.
¹⁰ God is my shield,
   who saves the upright in heart.
¹¹ God is a righteous judge,
   and a God who has indignation every day.

¹² If one does not repent, God^* will whet his sword;
   he has bent and strung his bow;
¹³ he has prepared his deadly weapons,
   making his arrows fiery shafts.
¹⁴ See how they conceive evil,
   and are pregnant with mischief,
   and bring forth lies.
¹⁵ They make a pit, digging it out,
   and fall into the hole that they have made.
¹⁶ Their mischief returns upon their own heads,
   and on their own heads their violence descends.

¹⁷ I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,
   and sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

1 Kings

The Struggle for the Succession

1King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. ²So his servants said to him, ‘Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm.’ ³So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. ⁴The girl was very beautiful. She became the king’s attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.

5 Now Adonijah son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, ‘I will be king’; he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him.

11 Then Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, ‘Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king and our lord David does not know it? ¹²Now therefore come, let me give you advice, so that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. ¹³Go in at once to King David, and say to him, “Did you not, my lord the king, swear to your servant, saying: Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne? Why then is Adonijah king?” ¹⁴Then while you are still there speaking with the king, I will come in after you and confirm your words.’

15 So Bathsheba went to the king in his room. The king was very old; Abishag the Shunammite was attending the king. ¹⁶Bathsheba bowed and did obeisance to the king, and the king said, ‘What do you wish?’ ¹⁷She said to him, ‘My lord, you swore to your servant by the Lord your God, saying: Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne. ¹⁸But now suddenly Adonijah has become king, though you, my lord the king, do not know it. ²⁹The king swore, saying, ‘As the Lord lives, who has saved my life from every adversity, ³⁰as I swore to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, “Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne in my place”, so will I do this day.’ ³¹Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the ground, and did obeisance to the king, and said, ‘May my lord King David live for ever!’

The Parable of the Sower

4Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. ²He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: ³‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. ⁴And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. ⁶And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. ⁸Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ ⁹And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’

The Purpose of the Parables

10 When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. ¹¹And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret^* of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; ¹²in order that
“they may indeed look, but not perceive,
   and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.” ’

13 And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? ¹⁴The sower sows the word. ¹⁵These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. ¹⁶And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. ¹⁷But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.^{* 18}And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, ¹⁹but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. ²⁰And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’