Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Prayer for Mercy
A song for going up to worship.
123 Lord, I look upward to you,
you who live in heaven.
2 Slaves depend on their masters,
and a female servant depends on her mistress.
In the same way, we depend on the Lord our God;
we wait for him to show us mercy.
3 Have mercy on us, Lord. Have mercy on us,
because we have been insulted.
4 We have suffered many insults from lazy people
and much cruelty from the proud.
Jeremiah’s Temple Message
7 This is the word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah: 2 “Stand at the gate of the Temple and preach this message there:
“‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of the nation of Judah! All you who come through these gates to worship the Lord, listen to this message! 3 This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Change your lives and do what is right! Then I will let you live in this place. 4 Don’t trust the lies of people who say, “This is the Temple of the Lord. This is the Temple of the Lord. This is the Temple of the Lord!” 5 You must change your lives and do what is right. Be fair to each other. 6 You must not be hard on strangers, orphans, and widows. Don’t kill innocent people in this place! Don’t follow other gods, or they will ruin your lives. 7 If you do these things, I will let you live in this land that I gave to your ancestors to keep forever.
8 “‘But look, you are trusting lies, which is useless. 9 Will you steal and murder and be guilty of adultery? Will you falsely accuse other people? Will you burn incense to the god Baal and follow other gods you have not known? 10 If you do that, do you think you can come before me and stand in this place where I have chosen to be worshiped? Do you think you can say, “We are safe!” when you do all these hateful things? 11 This place where I have chosen to be worshiped is nothing more to you than a hideout for robbers. I have been watching you, says the Lord.
12 “‘You people of Judah, go now to the town of Shiloh, where I first made a place to be worshiped. See what I did to it because of the evil things the people of Israel had done. 13 You people of Judah have done all these evil things too, says the Lord. I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen to me. I called you, but you did not answer. 14 So I will destroy the place where I have chosen to be worshiped in Jerusalem. You trust in that place, which I gave to you and your ancestors, but I will destroy it just as I destroyed Shiloh. 15 I will push you away from me just as I pushed away your relatives, the people of Israel!’
8 You think you already have everything you need. You think you are rich. You think you have become kings without us. I wish you really were kings so we could be kings together with you. 9 But it seems to me that God has put us apostles in last place, like those sentenced to die. We are like a show for the whole world to see—angels and people. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are very wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You receive honor, but we are shamed. 11 Even to this very hour we do not have enough to eat or drink or to wear. We are often beaten, and we have no homes in which to live. 12 We work hard with our own hands for our food. When people curse us, we bless them. When they hurt us, we put up with it. 13 When they tell evil lies about us, we speak nice words about them. Even today, we are treated as though we were the garbage of the world—the filth of the earth.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.