Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ Jehovah is kind and merciful, slow to get angry, full of love. ⁹ He is good to everyone, and his compassion is intertwined with everything he does. ¹⁰ All living things shall thank you, Lord, and your people will bless you. ¹¹ They will talk together about the glory of your kingdom and mention examples of your power. ¹² They will tell about your miracles and about the majesty and glory of your reign. ¹³ For your kingdom never ends. You rule generation after generation.

¹⁴ The Lord lifts the fallen and those bent beneath their loads.

^6-7 “Come, flee from the land of the north, from Babylon,” says the Lord to all his exiles there; “I scattered you to the winds, but I will bring you back again. Escape, escape to Zion now!” says the Lord.

⁸ “The Lord of Glory has sent me^[a] against the nations that oppressed you, for he who harms you sticks his finger in Jehovah’s eye!

⁹ “I will smash them with my fist and their slaves will be their rulers! Then you will know it was the Lord Almighty who sent me. ¹⁰ Sing, Jerusalem, and rejoice! For I have come to live among you,” says the Lord. ^11-12 “At that time many nations will be converted to the Lord, and they too shall be my people; I will live among them all. Then you will know it was the Lord Almighty who sent me to you. And Judah shall be the Lord’s inheritance in the Holy Land, for God shall once more choose to bless Jerusalem.

¹³ “Be silent, all mankind, before the Lord, for he has come to earth from heaven, from his holy home.”

⁷ Well then, am I suggesting that these laws of God are evil? Of course not! No, the law is not sinful, but it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known the sin in my heart—the evil desires that are hidden there—if the law had not said, “You must not have evil desires in your heart.” ⁸ But sin used this law against evil desires by reminding me that such desires are wrong, and arousing all kinds of forbidden desires within me! Only if there were no laws to break would there be no sinning.

⁹ That is why I felt fine so long as I did not understand what the law really demanded. But when I learned the truth, I realized that I had broken the law and was a sinner, doomed to die. ¹⁰ So as far as I was concerned, the good law which was supposed to show me the way of life resulted instead in my being given the death penalty. ¹¹ Sin fooled me by taking the good laws of God and using them to make me guilty of death. ¹² But still, you see, the law itself was wholly right and good.

¹³ But how can that be? Didn’t the law cause my doom? How then can it be good? No, it was sin, devilish stuff that it is, that used what was good to bring about my condemnation. So you can see how cunning and deadly and damnable it is. For it uses God’s good laws for its own evil purposes.

¹⁴ The law is good, then, and the trouble is not there but with me because I am sold into slavery with Sin as my owner.

¹⁵ I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to—what I hate. ¹⁶ I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. ¹⁷ But I can’t help myself because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.

¹⁸ I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t. ¹⁹ When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. ²⁰ Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.