Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 54^[a]

Prayer in Time of Danger

¹ For the director.^[b] On stringed instruments. A maskil of David. ² When the Ziphites came to Saul and said, “David is hiding among us.”

^5 [a]The king of Assyria occupied the entire land, and he went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.

⁶ The king of Assyria captured Samaria in the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea. He carried Israel away into Assyria, settling them in Halah, near Habor, on the River Gozan, in the cities of the Medes. ⁷ This happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. They had revered other gods ⁸ and they had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before them and that the kings of Israel had introduced.

⁹ The people of Israel secretly did what was wrong against the Lord, their God. They built high places for themselves in all of their cities, whether it be a simple watchtower or fortified city. ¹⁰ They set up pillars and Asherahs for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree. ¹¹ They burned incense on all of the high places like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them. They did wicked things, provoking the anger of the Lord. ¹² They served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You are not to do this thing.”

¹³ The Lord had testified against Israel and against Judah through every prophet and every seer saying, “Turn from your evil ways. Keep my commandments and my statutes according to the law that I gave your fathers and which I sent you by my servants, the prophets.” ¹⁴ But they would not listen. They hardened their necks to make them just like the necks of their fathers who had not believed in the Lord, their God. ¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers and the warnings by which he bore witness against them. They followed after vain idols, becoming foolish. They also followed after the nations that surrounded them, the ones of whom the Lord had told them that they should not do what they did. ¹⁶ They abandoned the commandments of the Lord, their God, and they made molten images of two calves for themselves. They made Asherah, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served the Baals.^{[b] 17} They burned their sons and their daughters in fire, and they practiced divination and sorcery. They sold themselves to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord and to provoke him to anger.

¹⁸ The Lord was thus very angry with Israel. He removed them from out of his sight, so that there were none of them left except for the tribe of Judah.

²⁹ The Judgment of God Has Already Come on This Generation.^[a]“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build the tombs of the Prophets and adorn the graves of the righteous, ³⁰ and you say, ‘If we had lived in the time of our ancestors, we never would have collaborated with them in shedding the blood of the Prophets.’ ³¹ Thus, you acknowledge that you are the descendants of those who murdered the Prophets. ³² Go and complete the work that your ancestors began.

³³ “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How can you escape being condemned to Gehenna? ³⁴ Behold, therefore, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. ³⁵ As a result, upon you will fall the guilt of all the innocent blood that has been shed upon the earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶ Amen, I say to you, the guilt for all this will fall upon this generation.

³⁷ The Lament over Jerusalem.^[b]“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you murder the Prophets and stone the messengers sent to you! How often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not allow it! ³⁸ Behold, your house has been abandoned and left desolate. ³⁹ I tell you, you will not see me again until you say: ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”