Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

26 Dismiss all the charges against me, Lord, for I have tried to keep your laws and have trusted you without wavering. ² Cross-examine me, O Lord, and see that this is so; test my motives and affections too. ³ For I have taken your loving-kindness and your truth as my ideals. ⁴ I do not have fellowship with tricky, two-faced men; they are false and hypocritical. ⁵ I hate the sinners’ hangouts and refuse to enter them. ⁶ I wash my hands to prove my innocence and come before your altar, ⁷ singing a song of thanksgiving and telling about your miracles.

⁸ Lord, I love your home, this shrine where the brilliant, dazzling splendor of your presence lives.

^9-10 Don’t treat me as a common sinner or murderer who plots against the innocent and demands bribes.

¹¹ No, I am not like that, O Lord; I try to walk a straight and narrow path of doing what is right; therefore in mercy save me.

¹² I publicly praise the Lord for keeping me from slipping and falling.

¹ In a vision the Lord God showed Obadiah the future of the land of Edom.^[a]

“A report has come from the Lord,” he said, “that God has sent an ambassador to the nations with this message: ‘Attention! You are to send your armies against Edom and destroy her!’”

² “I will cut you down to size among the nations, Edom, making you small and despised.

³ “You are proud because you live in those high, inaccessible cliffs. ‘Who can ever reach us way up here!’ you boast. Don’t fool yourselves! ⁴ Though you soar as high as eagles, and build your nest among the stars, I will bring you plummeting down,” says the Lord.

⁵ “Far better it would be for you if thieves had come at night to plunder you—for they would not take everything! Or if your vineyards were robbed of all their fruit—for at least the gleanings would be left! ⁶ Every nook and cranny will be searched and robbed, and every treasure found and taken.

⁷ “All your allies will turn against you and help to push you out of your land. They will promise peace while plotting your destruction. Your trusted friends will set traps for you, and all your counterstrategy will fail. ⁸ In that day not one wise man will be left in all of Edom!” says the Lord. “For I will fill the wise men of Edom with stupidity. ⁹ The mightiest soldiers of Teman will be confused, and helpless to prevent the slaughter.

⁹ After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from all nations and provinces and languages, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white, with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they were shouting with a mighty shout, “Salvation comes from our God upon the throne, and from the Lamb.”

¹¹ And now all the angels were crowding around the throne and around the Elders and the four Living Beings, and falling face down before the throne and worshiping God. ¹² “Amen!” they said. “Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be to our God forever and forever. Amen!”

¹³ Then one of the twenty-four Elders asked me, “Do you know who these are, who are clothed in white, and where they come from?”

¹⁴ “No, sir,” I replied. “Please tell me.”

“These are the ones coming out of the Great Tribulation,” he said; “they washed their robes and whitened them by the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵ That is why they are here before the throne of God, serving him day and night in his temple. The one sitting on the throne will shelter them; ¹⁶ they will never be hungry again, nor thirsty, and they will be fully protected from the scorching noontime heat. ¹⁷ For the Lamb standing in front of the throne^[a] will feed them and be their Shepherd and lead them to the springs of the Water of Life. And God will wipe their tears away.”