Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
64 1-2 Lord, listen to my complaint: Oh, preserve my life from the conspiracy of these wicked men, these gangs of criminals. 3 They cut me down with sharpened tongues; they aim their bitter words like arrows straight at my heart. 4 They shoot from ambush at the innocent. Suddenly the deed is done, yet they are not afraid. 5 They encourage each other to do evil. They meet in secret to set their traps. “He will never notice them here,” they say. 6 They keep a sharp lookout for opportunities of crime. They spend long hours with all their endless evil thoughts and plans.[a]
7 But God himself will shoot them down. Suddenly his arrow will pierce them. 8 They will stagger backward, destroyed by those they spoke against. All who see it happening will scoff at them. 9 Then everyone shall stand in awe and confess the greatness of the miracles of God; at last they will realize what amazing things he does. 10 And the godly shall rejoice in the Lord, and trust and praise him.
32 In mid-February of the twelfth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, this message came to me from the Lord:
2 “Son of dust, mourn for Pharaoh, king of Egypt and say to him: ‘You think of yourself as a strong young lion among the nations, but you are merely a crocodile[a] along the banks of the Nile, making bubbles and muddying the stream.’”
3 The Lord God says: “I will send a great army to catch you with my net. I will haul you out 4 and leave you stranded on the land to die. And all the birds of the heavens will light upon you, and the wild animals of the whole earth will devour you until they are glutted and full. 5 And I will cover the hills with your flesh and fill the valleys with your bones. 6 And I will drench the earth with your gushing blood, filling the ravines to the tops of the mountains. 7 I will blot you out, and I will veil the heavens and darken the stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give you her light. 8 Yes, darkness will be everywhere across your land—even the bright stars will be dark above you.
9 “And when I destroy you,[b] grief will be in many hearts among the distant nations you have never seen. 10 Yes, terror shall strike in many lands, and their kings shall be terribly afraid because of all I do to you. They shall shudder with terror when I brandish my sword before them. They shall greatly tremble for their lives on the day of your fall.”
37 The next day as they descended from the hill, a huge crowd met him, 38 and a man in the crowd called out to him, “Teacher, this boy here is my only son, 39 and a demon keeps seizing him, making him scream; and it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth; it is always hitting him and hardly ever leaves him alone. 40 I begged your disciples to cast the demon out, but they couldn’t.”
41 “O you stubborn faithless people,” Jesus said to his disciples,[a] “how long should I put up with you? Bring him here.”
42 As the boy was coming the demon knocked him to the ground and threw him into a violent convulsion. But Jesus ordered the demon to come out, and healed the boy and handed him over to his father.
43 Awe gripped the people as they saw this display of the power of God.
Meanwhile, as they were exclaiming over all the wonderful things he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples,
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