Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Praise him, you servants of the Lord;
    praise the name of the Lord.
² The Lord’s name should be praised
    now and forever.
³ The Lord’s name should be praised
    from where the sun rises to where it sets.
⁴ The Lord is supreme over all the nations;
    his glory reaches to the skies.

⁵ No one is like the Lord our God,
    who rules from heaven,
⁶ who bends down to look
    at the skies and the earth.
⁷ The Lord lifts the poor from the dirt
    and takes the helpless from the ashes.
⁸ He seats them with princes,
    the princes of his people.
⁹ He gives children to the woman who has none
    and makes her a happy mother.

Praise the Lord!

⁸ How terrible it will be for you who add more houses to your houses
    and more fields to your fields
until there is no room left for other people.
    Then you are left alone in the land.

“The fine houses will be destroyed;
    the large and beautiful houses will be left empty.
¹⁰ At that time a ten-acre vineyard will make only six gallons of wine,
    and ten bushels of seed will grow only half a bushel of grain.”

¹¹ How terrible it will be for people who rise early in the morning
    to look for strong drink,
who stay awake late at night,
    becoming drunk with wine.
¹² At their parties they have lyres, harps,
    tambourines, flutes, and wine.
They don’t see what the Lord has done
    or notice the work of his hands.
¹³ So my people will be captured and taken away,
    because they don’t really know me.
All the great people will die of hunger,
    and the common people will die of thirst.
¹⁴ So the place of the dead wants more and more people,
    and it opens wide its mouth.
Jerusalem’s important people and common people will go down into it,
    with their happy and noisy ones.
¹⁵ So the common people and the great people will be brought down;
    those who are proud will be humbled.
¹⁶ The Lord All-Powerful will receive glory by judging fairly;
    the holy God will show himself holy by doing what is right.
¹⁷ Then the sheep will go anywhere they want,
    and lambs will feed on the land that rich people once owned.

¹⁸ How terrible it will be for those people!
    They pull their guilt and sins behind them
    as people pull wagons with ropes.
¹⁹ They say, “Let God hurry;
    let him do his work soon
    so we may see it.
Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel happen soon
    so that we will know what it is.”

²⁰ How terrible it will be for people who call good things bad
    and bad things good,
who think darkness is light
    and light is darkness,
who think sour is sweet
    and sweet is sour.

²¹ How terrible it will be for people who think they are wise
    and believe they are clever.

²² How terrible it will be for people who are famous for drinking wine
    and are champions at mixing drinks.
²³ They take money to set the guilty free
    and don’t allow good people to be judged fairly.