Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 50
A song of Asaph.
1 The Mighty God, the Eternal—God of past, present, and future—
has spoken over the world,
calling together all things from sunrise to sunset.
2 From Zion, that perfectly beautiful holy place,
shines the radiance of God.
3 Our God will come, and He will not enter on a whisper.
A fire will devour the earth before Him;
the wind will storm wildly about Him.
4 He calls heaven above and earth below
to assist in bringing judgment on His people.
5 “Gather up those who are aligned with Me; bring them to Me;
bring everyone who belongs to Me who have made covenant sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens shout of His justice,
for He is the True God, an honest judge.
[pause][a]
7 “Listen, My people, I have something to say:
O Israel, My testimony comes against you;
I am God, your God.
8 I am not going to scold you because of your sacrifices;
your burnt offerings are always before Me.
9 I will not accept the best bull from your fields
or goats from your meadow,
10 For they are already Mine, just as the forest beast
and the cattle grazing over a thousand hills are Mine.
11 Every bird flying over the mountains I know;
every animal roaming over the fields belongs to Me.
12 I would not come to you if I were hungry,
for the world and all it contains are Mine.
13 Do you really think I eat bull meat?
Or drink goat’s blood?
14 Set out a sacrifice I can accept: your thankfulness.
Be true to your word to the Most High.
15 When you are in trouble, call for Me.
I will come and rescue you,
and you will honor Me.”
16 But to those acting against Him, God says,
“Who do you think you are?
Listing off My laws,
acting as if your life is in alignment with My ways?
17 For it’s clear that you despise My guidance;
you throw My wise words over your shoulder.
18 You play with thieves,
spend your time with adulterers.
19 Evil runs out of your mouth;
your tongue is wrapped in deceit.
20 You sit back and gossip about your brother;
you slander your mother’s son.
21 While you did these things, I kept silent;
somehow you got the idea that I was like you.
But now My silence ends, and I am going to indict you.
I’ll state the charge against you clearly, face-to-face.
22 All you who have forgotten Me, your God, should think about what I have said,
or I will tear you apart and leave no one to save you.
23 Set out a sacrifice I can accept: your thankfulness.
Do this, and you will honor Me.
Those who straighten up their lives
will know the saving grace of God.”
“Branch” is a prophetic title for the Anointed One, that royal descendant of David whom God will send to usher in a new age of justice, peace, and joy. In Zechariah’s day, the people wonder if Zerubbabel is that king. Ac cording to the prophet, God has designs on him as the one to rebuild the temple and occupy the throne, but he is not destined to reign alone as the Anointed One will. Zerubbabel reigns with Joshua, the high priest. Together they are anointed, acclaimed, and crowned leaders to watch over God’s people.
7 Two years after I saw the eight visions, on the fourth day of the ninth month (called Chislev) of the fourth year of the reign of Persian King Darius, the word of the Eternal came to me, Zechariah. 2 The situation was this: the citizens of Bethel had sent a delegation, including Sharezer and Regemmelech and his men, to seek the favor of the Eternal One 3 by questioning the priests working in the temple of the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, and by questioning the prophets.
Delegation: During the fifth month of every year, I fast and mourn. Should I continue separating myself from the impure world on these occasions as I have for so many years?
4 The word of the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies came to me and told me how to address their question.
Message: 5 Ask the citizens of the land and the priests, “When you fasted and mourned during the fifth and seventh months for the last seventy years, were you really fasting for My benefit or just for yourselves? 6 When you were feasting on holy days, weren’t you just eating and drinking for yourselves instead of honoring Me? 7 Aren’t these the same directives the Eternal One gave you through the work of earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was bustling with people and prosperous, when the villages around Jerusalem throughout the south[a] and the western valleys were settled?”
8 The word of the Eternal came to me, Zechariah, again.
Message: 9 Here is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, has to say: “Dispense true justice, have mercy on others, and show all people compassion. 10 Do not take advantage of those who have lost a spouse or a parent, or those who are outsiders or poor. Don’t purpose to do evil toward your fellow Israelites.”
11 Some refused to listen. They turned their backs on this message and plugged their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint, refusing to listen to the law or the messages the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, sent by His Spirit and enacted through earlier prophets. That’s why His great wrath and calamity fell upon His people.
Eternal One: 13 When I called out, they chose not to hear Me, so when they called out, I returned the favor and decided not to hear them. 14 Like a sweeping tornado, I blew them throughout the nations, scattering them in distant lands where they were aliens, all alone. That’s how the land and its cities were emptied out and left so barren that no one even traveled through it. This is how your pleasant hills and valleys turned into empty lands.
5 You have heard the stories many times, and the Spirit has enlightened you about their meaning, but you still need to be reminded. Remember when the Lord saved our ancestors from the land in Egypt? He breathed life into their earthen lungs and took back the life from those who did not believe. 6 And God has kept the rebellious heavenly messengers bound and chained in utter darkness—shadowy gloom—until the time when His judgment arrives, because they failed to keep their rightful positions and abandoned their appointed realms. 7 Sodom and Gomorrah and all their neighbors were defeated by their own sexual perversions as they pursued the strange and unnatural impulses of the flesh. Let these who went their own way and are experiencing the eternal heat of God’s vengeance—a punishment by fire—be a warning to you.
8 These stories are examples to help you understand the fate of those dreamers who have slipped in and defiled your community, rejected those in charge, and insulted the glorious majesty of the heavenly messengers. 9 Even their chief, Michael, when disputing with the devil over Moses’ body, did not offer his own taunting judgment against him. Michael simply said, “May the Lord’s rebuke fall on you.”[a]
10 The deceivers among you despise what they do not understand; they live without reason like animals, reacting only with primal instincts; and their ways are corrupting them. 11 Woe to these deceivers! They are doomed! They have followed in the footsteps of their father Cain, sold their souls for profit into Balaam’s deceit, and suffered the devastation of Korah’s rebellion.
12 These men are cold stones on the warm hearth of your love feasts as they glut themselves without fear, thinking only of their own benefit. They are waterless clouds, carried away by the wind; autumn’s lonely and barren trees, twice dead, uprooted; 13 violent waves of the sea breaking over the bow, foaming with shame; lost and wandering stars destined to live forever in gloomy darkness.
14 During the seventh generation after Adam, the prophet Enoch said, “Look! The Lord came, and with Him tens of thousands of His holy messengers 15 to judge wicked men and convict the impious and ungodly for all they have said and all the hard things they have done against the Holy One.” 16 These men are complainers who look long and hard to find the faults of other men. They are led by their own lustful desires like fools down the path of destruction. They are arrogant liars who want only to get ahead of others.
17 But you, friends, remember the words of the emissaries[b] of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King: 18 “At the end of time, some will ridicule the faithful and follow their lusts to the grave.” 19 These are the men among you—those who divide friends, those concerned ultimately with this world, those without the Spirit. 20-21 You, however, should stand firm in the love of God, constructing a life within the holy faith, praying the Spirit’s prayer, as you wait eagerly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, which leads to eternal life.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.