Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Be Gracious to Your Servants

Psalm 123

Mend Your Ways!

7 The word that came to Jeremiah from Adonai, saying: ² Stand in the gate of Adonai’s house and proclaim there this word and say: “Hear the word of Adonai, all you of Judah that come through these gates to worship Adonai. ³ Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel; mend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you live in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in deceptive words and say ‘The Temple of Adonai, the Temple of Adonai, the Temple of Adonai!’

⁵ “No, if you truly mend your ways and your deeds—if you are doing justice between a man and his neighbor, ⁶ not oppressing the sojourner, orphan and widow nor shedding innocent blood in this place, nor going after other gods to your own ruin— ⁷ then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. ⁸ Look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are empty. ⁹ Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and perjury, and offer incense to Baal and walk after other gods whom you have not known— ¹⁰ and then come and stand before Me in this house that bears My Name, saying, ‘We are saved!’—so that you may keep doing all these abominations? ¹¹ Has this House, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?^[a] Look, even I have seen it!” It is a declaration of Adonai.

¹² “Indeed, go now to My place that was in Shiloh, where I first made My Name dwell. Now see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. ¹³ While you were doing all these things,” declares Adonai, “I spoke to you early and often, but you did not listen, and I called you but you did not answer. ¹⁴ Therefore I will do to the House that bears My Name—the one in which you trust, the one that I gave to you and to your fathers—as I have done to Shiloh. ¹⁵ And I will cast you out of My sight, just as I cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim.

⁸ Already you are full! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish you were kings, so we also might be kings with you! ⁹ For it seems to me that God has put us, the emissaries, on display last of all—like men sentenced to death. For we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people. ¹⁰ We are fools for Messiah’s sake, but you are wise in Messiah! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, but we are dishonored! ¹¹ To this very hour we are both hungry and thirsty, dressed in rags and mistreated and homeless. ¹² We toil, working with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure. ¹³ When we are slandered, we speak kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the dregs of all things—even to this moment.