Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

63 A psalm of David when he was hiding in the wilderness of Judea.

O God, my God! How I search for you! How I thirst for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. How I long to find you! ² How I wish I could go into your sanctuary to see your strength and glory, ³ for your love and kindness are better to me than life itself. How I praise you! ⁴ I will bless you as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. ⁵ At last I shall be fully satisfied; I will praise you with great joy.

⁶ I lie awake at night thinking of you— ⁷ of how much you have helped me—and how I rejoice through the night beneath the protecting shadow of your wings. ⁸ I follow close behind you, protected by your strong right arm. ⁹ But those plotting to destroy me shall go down to the depths of hell. ¹⁰ They are doomed to die by the sword, to become the food of jackals. ¹¹ But I^[a] will rejoice in God. All who trust in him exult, while liars shall be silenced.

1 This message came from the Lord to Joel, son of Pethuel:

² Listen, you aged men of Israel! Everyone, listen! In all your lifetime, yes, in all your history, have you ever heard of such a thing as I am going to tell you? ³ In years to come, tell your children about it; pass the awful story down from generation to generation. ⁴ After the cutter-locusts finish eating your crops, the swarmer-locusts will take what’s left! After them will come the hopper-locusts! And then the stripper-locusts too!

⁵ Wake up and weep, you drunkards, for all the grapes are ruined, and all your wine is gone! ⁶ A vast army of locusts^[a] covers the land. It is a terrible army too numerous to count, with teeth as sharp as those of lions! ⁷ They have ruined my vines and stripped the bark from the fig trees, leaving trunks and branches white and bare.

⁸ Weep with sorrow, as a virgin weeps whose fiancé is dead. ⁹ Gone are the offerings of grain and wine to bring to the Temple of the Lord; the priests are starving. Hear the crying of these ministers of God. ¹⁰ The fields are bare of crops. Sorrow and sadness are everywhere. The grain, the grapes, the olive oil are gone.

¹¹ Well may you farmers stand so shocked and stricken; well may you vinedressers weep. Weep for the wheat and the barley, too, for they are gone. ¹² The grapevines are dead; the fig trees are dying; the pomegranates wither; the apples shrivel on the trees; all joy has withered with them.

¹³ O priests, robe yourselves in sackcloth. O ministers of my God, lie all night before the altar, weeping. For there are no more offerings of grain and wine for you. ¹⁴ Announce a fast; call a solemn meeting. Gather the elders and all the people into the Temple of the Lord your God, and weep before him there.

⁶ And now Timothy has just returned and brings the welcome news that your faith and love are as strong as ever and that you remember our visit with joy and want to see us just as much as we want to see you. ⁷ So we are greatly comforted, dear brothers, in all of our own crushing troubles and suffering here, now that we know you are standing true to the Lord. ⁸ We can bear anything as long as we know that you remain strong in him.

⁹ How can we thank God enough for you and for the joy and delight you have given us in our praying for you? ¹⁰ For night and day we pray on and on for you, asking God to let us see you again, to fill up any little cracks there may yet be in your faith.

¹¹ May God our Father himself and our Lord Jesus send us back to you again. ¹² And may the Lord make your love to grow and overflow to each other and to everyone else, just as our love does toward you. ¹³ This will result in your hearts being made strong, sinless, and holy by God our Father so that you may stand before him guiltless on that day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns with all those who belong to him.^[a]