Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Trust in His Chesed

Psalm 13

Daniel’s Vision of a Ram and Goat

8 “In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after the one that had appeared to me earlier. ² In the vision I saw myself in the citadel^[a] of Shushan^[b], which is in the province of Elam. In the vision I saw that I was beside the Ulai Canal. ³ I lifted up my eyes and looked up, behold, a ram with two horns was standing in front of the canal. The two horns were long but one was longer than the other, but the longer one grew up last. ⁴ I saw the ram charging toward the west and north and south. No animal could stand against him—none could deliver from his hand. So he did as he pleased and magnified himself.

⁵ “While I was contemplating this, behold, a male goat came from the west crossing the face of the whole earth without touching the ground! Now the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. ⁶ He came up to the two-horn ram that I had seen standing beside the canal, and charged it with raging strength. ⁷ I saw him attacking the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering his two horns. Now the ram was not strong enough to stand against him, so he knocked the ram to the ground and trampled him. No one could rescue the ram from his power.

⁸ “The male goat became exceedingly great, but as soon as he became mighty, the large horn was broken, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.

⁹ “Out of one of them came forth a small horn, which grew extremely large to the south and the east, and toward the beautiful land. ¹⁰ It grew as high as the host of heaven and hurled some of the host and the stars down to the earth and trampled them. ¹¹ It set itself up to be as great as the Prince of the host. It took away from him the daily offering and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down. ¹² The host was given over along with the daily sacrifice, in the course of its rebellion. It will hurl truth to the ground and prosper in what it does.

¹³ “Then I heard a holy one speaking and another holy one said to the one who was speaking, ‘How long will the vision last, the daily sacrifice be forsaken because of rebellion, the sanctuary be surrendered and the host be trampled?’ ¹⁴ Then he said to me: ‘For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be vindicated.’

²⁶ For if we keep on sinning willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but only a terrifying expectation of judgment and a fury of fire about to devour the enemies of God. ^{[a] 28} Anyone who rejected the Torah of Moses dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses. ^{[b] 29} How much more severe do you think the punishment will be for the one who has trampled Ben-Elohim underfoot, and has regarded as unholy the blood of the covenant by which he was made holy, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know the One who said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,” and again, “Adonai will judge His people.” ^{[c] 31} It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.