Psalms 15
Big idea: A question asked at the gate — who shall dwell in your sanctuary? — and answered with a list that contains no rituals at all. Every item is about how you treat other people, and most are about your mouth: truth spoken inwardly, no slander, no slurs. The hardest line is verse 4: he who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and doesn't change. That is the psalm's whole ethic in one clause — the promise still binding after it stops being convenient.
Psalm 15 lists who may stay on the hill. Psalm 16 is what someone who is there actually says.
15:1–5 — He who keeps an oath even when it hurts
An entrance liturgy: a question asked at the gate, and an answer that is startling for what it leaves out. Nothing here is about sacrifice, ritual or ancestry. Ten characteristics, and almost all of them concern how you treat people when it costs you — the neighbour you could slander, the oath you could quietly drop, the money you could lend at interest. The hardest line is the one about keeping a promise after it has turned out badly.
1 A Psalm by David. Yahweh, who shall dwell in your sanctuary? Who shall live on your holy hill? 2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right, and speaks truth in his heart; 3 he who doesn’t slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his friend, nor casts slurs against his fellow man; 4 in whose eyes a vile man is despised, but who honors those who fear Yahweh; he who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and doesn’t change; 5 he who doesn’t lend out his money for usury, nor take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be shaken.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).