Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

110 Jehovah said to my Lord the Messiah,^[a] “Rule as my regent—I will subdue your enemies and make them bow low before you.”

² Jehovah has established your throne^[b] in Jerusalem to rule over your enemies. ³ In that day of your power your people shall come to you willingly, dressed in holy altar robes.^[c] And your strength shall be renewed day by day like morning dew. ⁴ Jehovah has taken oath and will not rescind his vow that you are a priest forever like^[d] Melchizedek. ⁵ God stands beside you to protect you. He will strike down many kings in the day of his anger. ⁶ He will punish the nations and fill them with their dead. He will crush many heads. ⁷ But he himself shall be refreshed from springs along the way.

²⁰ Wisdom shouts in the streets for a hearing. ²¹ She calls out to the crowds along Main Street, and to the judges in their courts, and to everyone in all the land: ²² “You simpletons!” she cries. “How long will you go on being fools? How long will you scoff at wisdom and fight the facts? ²³ Come here and listen to me! I’ll pour out the spirit of wisdom upon you and make you wise. ²⁴ I have called you so often, but still you won’t come. I have pleaded, but all in vain. ²⁵ For you have spurned my counsel and reproof. ²⁶ Some day you’ll be in trouble, and I’ll laugh! Mock me, will you?—I’ll mock you! ²⁷ When a storm of terror surrounds you, and when you are engulfed by anguish and distress, ²⁸ then I will not answer your cry for help. It will be too late though you search for me ever so anxiously.

²⁹ “For you closed your eyes to the facts and did not choose to reverence and trust the Lord, ³⁰ and you turned your back on me, spurning my advice. ³¹ That is why you must eat the bitter fruit of having your own way and experience the full terrors of the pathway you have chosen. ³² For you turned away from me—to death; your own complacency will kill you. Fools! ³³ But all who listen to me shall live in peace and safety, unafraid.”

4 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it because there is a whole army of evil desires within you? ² You want what you don’t have, so you kill to get it. You long for what others have, and can’t afford it, so you start a fight to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. ³ And even when you do ask you don’t get it because your whole aim is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

⁴ You are like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband’s enemies. Don’t you realize that making friends with God’s enemies—the evil pleasures of this world—makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy the evil pleasure of the unsaved world, you cannot also be a friend of God. ⁵ Or what do you think the Scripture means when it says that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, watches over us with tender jealousy? ⁶ But he gives us more and more strength to stand against all such evil longings. As the Scripture says, God gives strength to the humble but sets himself against the proud and haughty.

⁷ So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ And when you draw close to God, God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and let your hearts be filled with God alone to make them pure and true to him. ⁹ Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and sincere grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. ¹⁰ Then when you realize your worthlessness before the Lord, he will lift you up, encourage and help you.