Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

55 Say there! Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine and milk—it’s all free! ² Why spend your money on food that doesn’t give you strength? Why pay for groceries that do you no good? Listen and I’ll tell you where to get good food that fattens up the soul!

³ Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, for the life of your soul is at stake. I am ready to make an everlasting covenant with you, to give you all the unfailing mercies and love that I had for King David.^{[a] 4} He proved my power by conquering foreign nations.^{[b] 5} You also will command the nations, and they will come running to obey, not because of your own power or virtue, but because I, the Lord your God, have glorified you.

⁶ Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call upon him now while he is near. ⁷ Let men cast off their wicked deeds; let them banish from their minds the very thought of doing wrong! Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy upon them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon! ⁸ This plan of mine is not what you would work out, neither are my thoughts the same as yours! ⁹ For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours.

63 A psalm of David when he was hiding in the wilderness of Judea.

O God, my God! How I search for you! How I thirst for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. How I long to find you! ² How I wish I could go into your sanctuary to see your strength and glory, ³ for your love and kindness are better to me than life itself. How I praise you! ⁴ I will bless you as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. ⁵ At last I shall be fully satisfied; I will praise you with great joy.

⁶ I lie awake at night thinking of you— ⁷ of how much you have helped me—and how I rejoice through the night beneath the protecting shadow of your wings. ⁸ I follow close behind you, protected by your strong right arm.

10 For we must never forget, dear brothers, what happened to our people in the wilderness long ago. God guided them by sending a cloud that moved along ahead of them; and he brought them all safely through the waters of the Red Sea. ² This might be called their “baptism”—baptized both in sea and cloud!—as followers of Moses—their commitment to him as their leader. ^3-4 And by a miracle God sent them food to eat and water to drink^[a] there in the desert; they drank the water that Christ gave them. He was there with them as a mighty Rock of spiritual refreshment. ⁵ Yet after all this most of them did not obey God, and he destroyed them in the wilderness.

⁶ From this lesson we are warned that we must not desire evil things as they did, ⁷ nor worship idols as they did. (The Scriptures tell us, “The people sat down to eat and drink and then got up to dance” in worship of the golden calf.)

⁸ Another lesson for us is what happened when some of them sinned with other men’s wives, and 23,000 fell dead in one day. ⁹ And don’t try the Lord’s patience—they did and died from snake bites. ¹⁰ And don’t murmur against God and his dealings with you as some of them did, for that is why God sent his Angel to destroy them.

¹¹ All these things happened to them as examples—as object lessons to us—to warn us against doing the same things; they were written down so that we could read about them and learn from them in these last days as the world nears its end.

¹² So be careful. If you are thinking, “Oh, I would never behave like that”—let this be a warning to you. For you too may fall into sin. ¹³ But remember this—the wrong desires that come into your life aren’t anything new and different. Many others have faced exactly the same problems before you. And no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it, for he has promised this and will do what he says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it.

13 About this time he was informed that Pilate had butchered some Jews from Galilee as they were sacrificing at the Temple in Jerusalem.

² “Do you think they were worse sinners than other men from Galilee?” he asked. “Is that why they suffered? ³ Not at all! And don’t you realize that you also will perish unless you leave your evil ways and turn to God?

⁴ “And what about the eighteen men who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? ⁵ Not at all! And you, too, will perish unless you repent.”

⁶ Then he used this illustration: “A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and again to see if he could find any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. ⁷ Finally he told his gardener to cut it down. ‘I’ve waited three years and there hasn’t been a single fig!’ he said. ‘Why bother with it any longer? It’s taking up space we can use for something else.’

⁸ “‘Give it one more chance,’ the gardener answered. ‘Leave it another year, and I’ll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. ⁹ If we get figs next year, fine; if not, I’ll cut it down.’”