Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Psalm to Asaph.
1 ¶ The God of gods, even the LORD, has spoken and convocated the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined forth.
3 Our God shall come and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
4 He shall convocate the heavens of above, and the earth, that he may judge his people.
5 Gather my merciful ones together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is the judge. Selah.
7 ¶ Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee; I am God, even thy God.
8 I will not reprove thee regarding thy sacrifices; thy burnt offerings are continually before me.
9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11 I know all the fowls of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are with me.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is mine and the fullness thereof.
13 Must I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
14 Sacrifice praise unto God and pay thy vows unto the most High
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
16 ¶ But unto the wicked God saith, What part hast thou to declare my statutes or that thou should take my covenant in thy mouth?
17 Seeing thou dost hate chastening and dost cast my words behind thee.
18 When thou didst see a thief, then thou didst consent with him and hast been partaker with adulterers.
19 Thou didst give thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frames deceit.
20 Thou didst sit and speak against thy brother; thou didst slander thine own mother’s son.
21 These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou didst think that I was altogether such a one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes.
22 Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I take you away, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whosoever sacrifices praise glorifies me; and to him that orders his ways aright I will show the salvation of God.
7 ¶ And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius that the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu;
2 when they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regemmelech and their men, to pray before the LORD
3 and to speak unto the priests which were in the house of the LORD of the hosts and to the prophets, saying, Should we weep in the fifth month? Should we do abstinence as we have done these so many years?
4 Then the word of the LORD of the hosts came unto me, saying,
5 Speak unto all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?
6 And when ye ate, and when ye drank, did ye not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
7 Are these not the words which the LORD has published by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and quiet and the cities thereof round about her and when the south and the plain were inhabited?
8 ¶ And the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah, saying,
9 Thus hath the LORD of the hosts spoken, saying, Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion each one to his brother;
10 and do not oppress the widow nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
11 But they refused to hearken and pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears that they should not hear.
12 Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone lest they should hear the law and the words which the LORD of the hosts has sent by his Spirit by the hand of the former prophets; therefore came great wrath from the LORD of the hosts.
13 Therefore it is come to pass that as he cried and they would not hear, so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of the hosts:
14 but I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the Gentiles whom they did not know. Thus the land was desolate after them that no man passed through nor returned; for they laid the desirable land desolate.
5 I will, therefore, remind you, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those that did not believe.
6 And the angels who did not keep their first estate but left their own habitation, he has reserved in eternal chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, were set forth for an example, having received the judgment of eternal fire.
8 ¶ In the same manner these deceived dreamers, defile their flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of higher powers.
9 Yet when Michael, the archangel, contended with the devil, disputing over the body of Moses, he dared not bring against him a curse of judgment, but said, The Lord reprehend thee.
10 But these speak evil of those things which they do not know; but what they know by nature as animals without reason, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward and perished in the gainsaying of Core.
12 These are spots in your banquets of charity, feeding themselves without any fear whatsoever: clouds without water, carried to and fro of the winds; trees withered as in fall, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own abominations; erratic stars, to whom is reserved gross darkness eternally.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints
15 ¶ to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have unfaithfully committed and of all the hard words which the unfaithful sinners have spoken against him.
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own desires; and their mouth speaks arrogant things, admiring persons to take advantage.
17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
18 how that they told you, That in the last time there would be mockers, who would walk after their own ungodly desires.
19 These are those who make divisions, and are as animals, not having the Spirit.
20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life,
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