Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
God the Ruler of the World[a]
98 Sing a new song to the Lord;
he has done wonderful things!
By his own power and holy strength
he has won the victory.
2 The Lord announced his victory;
he made his saving power known to the nations.
3 He kept his promise to the people of Israel
with loyalty and constant love for them.
All people everywhere have seen the victory of our God.
4 Sing for joy to the Lord, all the earth;
praise him with songs and shouts of joy!
5 Sing praises to the Lord!
Play music on the harps!
6 Blow trumpets and horns,
and shout for joy to the Lord, our king.
7 Roar, sea, and every creature in you;
sing, earth, and all who live on you!
8 Clap your hands, you rivers;
you hills, sing together with joy before the Lord,
9 because he comes to rule the earth.
He will rule the peoples of the world
with justice and fairness.
Saul's Descendants Are Put to Death
21 During David's reign there was a severe famine which lasted for three full years. So David consulted the Lord about it, and the Lord said, “Saul and his family are guilty of murder; he put the people of Gibeon to death.” (2 (A)The people of Gibeon were not Israelites; they were a small group of Amorites whom the Israelites had promised to protect, but Saul had tried to destroy them because of his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.) 3 So David summoned the people of Gibeon and said to them, “What can I do for you? I want to make up for the wrong that was done to you, so that you will bless the Lord's people.”
4 They answered, “Our quarrel with Saul and his family can't be settled with silver or gold, nor do we want to kill any Israelite.”
“What, then, do you think I should do for you?” David asked.
5 They answered, “Saul wanted to destroy us and leave none of us alive anywhere in Israel. 6 So hand over seven of his male descendants, and we will hang them before the Lord at Gibeah, the hometown of Saul, the Lord's chosen king.”
“I will hand them over,” the king answered.
7 (B)But because of the sacred promise that he and Jonathan had made to each other, David spared Jonathan's son Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul. 8 (C)However, he took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons that Rizpah the daughter of Aiah had borne to Saul; he also took the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai, who was from Meholah. 9 David handed them over to the people of Gibeon, who hanged them on the mountain before the Lord—and all seven of them died together. It was late in the spring, at the beginning of the barley harvest, when they were put to death.
10 Then Saul's concubine Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, used sackcloth to make a shelter for herself on the rock where the corpses were, and she stayed there from the beginning of harvest until the autumn rains came. During the day she would keep the birds away from the corpses, and at night she would protect them from wild animals.
11 When David heard what Rizpah had done, 12 (D)he went and got the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan from the people of Jabesh in Gilead. (They had stolen them from the public square in Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hanged the bodies on the day they killed Saul on Mount Gilboa.) 13 David took the bones of Saul and Jonathan and also gathered up the bones of the seven men who had been hanged. 14 Then they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan in the grave of Saul's father Kish, in Zela in the territory of Benjamin, doing all that the king had commanded. And after that, God answered their prayers for the country.
The Judgment at Christ's Coming
3 Our friends, we must thank God at all times for you. It is right for us to do so, because your faith is growing so much and the love each of you has for the others is becoming greater. 4 That is why we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God. We boast about the way you continue to endure and believe through all the persecutions and sufferings you are experiencing.
5 All of this proves that God's judgment is just and as a result you will become worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering. 6 God will do what is right: he will bring suffering on those who make you suffer, 7 and he will give relief to you who suffer and to us as well. He will do this when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with his mighty angels, 8 with a flaming fire, to punish those who reject God and who do not obey the Good News about our Lord Jesus. 9 (A)They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious might, 10 when he comes on that Day to receive glory from all his people and honor from all who believe. You too will be among them, because you have believed the message that we told you.
11 That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of the life he has called you to live. May he fulfill by his power all your desire for goodness and complete your work of faith. 12 In this way the name of our Lord Jesus will receive glory from you, and you from him, by the grace of our God and of the Lord[a] Jesus Christ.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.