Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

93 Jehovah is King! He is robed in majesty and strength. The world is his throne.^[a]

² O Lord, you have reigned from prehistoric times, from the everlasting past. ³ The mighty oceans thunder your praise. ⁴ You are mightier than all the breakers pounding on the seashores of the world! ⁵ Your royal decrees cannot be changed. Holiness is forever the keynote of your reign.

²⁰ Then another message came to me from the Lord:

²¹ “Son of dust, look toward the city of Sidon and prophesy against it. Say to it, ²² ‘The Lord God says: I am your enemy, O Sidon, and I will reveal my power over you. When I destroy you and show forth my holiness upon you, then all who see shall know I am the Lord. ²³ I will send an epidemic of disease and an army to destroy; the wounded shall be slain in your streets by troops on every side. Then you will know I am the Lord. ²⁴ No longer shall you and Israel’s other neighbor nations prick and tear at Israel like thorns and briars, though they formerly despised her and treated her with great contempt.

²⁵ “‘The people of Israel will once more live in their own land, the land I gave their father Jacob. For I will gather them back again from distant lands where I have scattered them, and I will show the nations of the world my holiness among my people. ²⁶ They will live safely in Israel and build their homes and plant their vineyards. When I punish all the bordering nations that treated them with such contempt, then they shall know I am the Lord their God.’”

²⁰ But the fact is that Christ did actually rise from the dead and has become the first of millions^[a] who will come back to life again someday.

²¹ Death came into the world because of what one man (Adam) did, and it is because of what this other man (Christ) has done that now there is the resurrection from the dead. ²² Everyone dies because all of us are related to Adam, being members of his sinful race, and wherever there is sin, death results. But all who are related to Christ will rise again. ²³ Each, however, in his own turn: Christ rose first; then when Christ comes back, all his people will become alive again.

²⁴ After that the end will come when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having put down all enemies of every kind. ²⁵ For Christ will be King until he has defeated all his enemies, ²⁶ including the last enemy—death. This too must be defeated and ended. ²⁷ For the rule and authority over all things has been given to Christ by his Father; except, of course, Christ does not rule over the Father himself, who gave him this power to rule. ²⁸ When Christ has finally won the battle against all his enemies, then he, the Son of God, will put himself also under his Father’s orders, so that God who has given him the victory over everything else will be utterly supreme.