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.
27 “Jeremiah, you will tell all these things to the people of Judah, but they will not listen to you. You will call to them, but they will not answer you. 28 So say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God. These people do nothing when I correct them. They do not tell the truth; it has disappeared from their lips.
The Valley of Killing
29 “‘Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry out, because the Lord has rejected these people. He has turned his back on them, and in his anger will punish them. 30 The people of Judah have done what I said was evil, says the Lord. They have set up their hateful idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped and have made it unclean. 31 The people of Judah have built places of worship at Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There they burned their own sons and daughters as sacrifices, something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind. 32 So, I warn you. The days are coming, says the Lord, when people will not call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom anymore. They will call it the Valley of Killing. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no room to bury anyone else. 33 Then the bodies of the dead will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals. There will be no one left alive to chase them away. 34 I will end the happy sounds of the bride and bridegroom. There will be no happy sounds in the cities of Judah or in the streets of Jerusalem, because the land will become an empty desert!
People Want to Follow Jesus
18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he told his followers to go to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, I will follow you any place you go.”
20 Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes to live in, and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head.”
21 Another man, one of Jesus’ followers, said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the people who are dead bury their own dead.”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.