Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Surely God is My Helper

Psalm 54

⁵ Then the king of Assyria invaded the entire country, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.

⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He placed them in Halah and Habor, on the Gozan River, and in the towns of the Medes. ⁷ Now it was so because the men of Israel had sinned against Adonai their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods. ⁸ Instead they followed the customs of the nations, whom Adonai had dispossessed before Bnei-Yisrael, yet which the kings of Israel practiced. ⁹ Bnei-Yisrael secretly did things against Adonai their God that were not right. They built shrines for themselves in all their settlements—from watchtowers to fortified cities, ¹⁰ and they set up pillars and Asherah poles for themselves on every high hill and under every leafy tree. ¹¹ There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom Adonai had driven out before them. So they did wicked things to provoke Adonai. ¹² They worshipped idols, about which Adonai had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”

¹³ Yet Adonai had forewarned Israel and Judah by the hand of every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the Torah which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by the hand of My servants the prophets.” ¹⁴ Yet they would not listen, but stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not trust in Adonai their God. ¹⁵ So they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies that He testified against them. Instead they went after futile things and became futile, following the nations that surrounded them, about whom Adonai had charged them not to emulate. ¹⁶ So they abandoned all the mitzvot of Adonai their God. So they made for themselves molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah pole, and bowed down to all the host of heavens, and worshipped Baal, ¹⁷ and they made their sons and daughters pass through the fire, practiced divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in Adonai’s eyes, to provoke Him.

¹⁸ So Adonai became very angry with Israel, and banished them from His presence. There was none left but the tribe of Judah alone.

²⁹ “Woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the tzaddikim. ³⁰ And you say, ‘If we’d been alive in the days of our forefathers, we wouldn’t have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹ So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers! ³³ O snakes, you brood of vipers! How will you escape the condemnation of Gehenna?

³⁴ “Because of this, behold, I’m sending you prophets and wise men and Torah scholars. Some of them you will kill and execute at the stake, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. ³⁵ And so, upon you shall come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah,^[a] whom you murdered between the Temple and the altar. ^{[b] 36} Amen, I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.”

Holy Temple to Be Destroyed

³⁷ “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! ³⁸ Look, your house is left to you desolate! ^{[c] 39} For I tell you, you will never see Me again until you say, ‘Baruch ha-ba b’shem Adonai. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”^[d]