Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
The Happy Home
A song for going up to worship.
128 Happy are those who respect the Lord and obey him.
2 You will enjoy what you work for,
and you will be blessed with good things.
3 Your wife will give you many children,
like a vine that produces much fruit.
Your children will bring you much good,
like olive branches that produce many olives.
4 This is how the man who respects the Lord
will be blessed.
5 May the Lord bless you from Mount Zion;
may you enjoy the good things of Jerusalem all your life.
6 May you see your grandchildren.
Let there be peace in Israel.
A New Time Is Coming
17 “Look, I will make new heavens and a new earth,
and people will not remember the past
or think about those things.
18 My people will be happy forever
because of the things I will make.
I will make a Jerusalem that is full of joy,
and I will make her people a delight.
19 Then I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and be delighted with my people.
There will never again be heard in that city
the sounds of crying and sadness.
20 There will never be a baby from that city
who lives only a few days.
And there will never be an older person
who doesn’t have a long life.
A person who lives a hundred years will be called young,
and a person who dies before he is a hundred will be thought of as a sinner.
21 In that city those who build houses will live there.
Those who plant vineyards will get to eat their grapes.
22 No more will one person build a house and someone else live there.
One person will not plant a garden and someone else eat its fruit.
My people will live a long time,
as trees live long.
My chosen people will live there
and enjoy the things they make.
23 They will never again work for nothing.
They will never again give birth to children who die young.
All my people will be blessed by the Lord;
they and their children will be blessed.
24 I will provide for their needs before they ask,
and I will help them while they are still asking for help.
25 Wolves and lambs will eat together in peace.
Lions will eat hay like oxen,
and a snake on the ground will not hurt anyone.
They will not hurt or destroy each other
on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.
6 David said the same thing. He said that people are truly blessed when God, without paying attention to their deeds, makes people right with himself.
7 “Blessed are they
whose sins are forgiven,
whose wrongs are pardoned.
8 Blessed is the person
whom the Lord does not consider guilty.” Psalm 32:1–2
9 Is this blessing only for those who are circumcised or also for those who are not circumcised? We have already said that God accepted Abraham’s faith and that faith made him right with God. 10 So how did this happen? Did God accept Abraham before or after he was circumcised? It was before his circumcision. 11 Abraham was circumcised to show that he was right with God through faith before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the father of all those who believe but are not circumcised; he is the father of all believers who are accepted as being right with God. 12 And Abraham is also the father of those who have been circumcised and who live following the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
God Keeps His Promise
13 Abraham[a] and his descendants received the promise that they would get the whole world. He did not receive that promise through the law, but through being right with God by his faith.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.