Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

89 Forever and ever I will sing about the tender kindness of the Lord! Young and old shall hear about your blessings. ² Your love and kindness are forever; your truth is as enduring as the heavens.

^3-4 The Lord God says,^[a] “I have made a solemn agreement with my chosen servant David. I have taken an oath to establish his descendants as kings forever on his throne, from now until eternity!”

⁵ All heaven shall praise your miracles, O Lord; myriads of angels^[b] will praise you for your faithfulness. ⁶ For who in all of heaven can be compared with God? What mightiest angel^[c] is anything like him? ⁷ The highest of angelic powers^[d] stand in dread and awe of him. Who is as revered as he by those surrounding him? ⁸ O Jehovah, Commander of the heavenly armies, where is there any other Mighty One like you? Faithfulness is your very character.

⁹ You rule the oceans when their waves arise in fearful storms; you speak, and they lie still. ¹⁰ You have cut haughty Egypt^[e] to pieces. Your enemies are scattered by your awesome power. ¹¹ The heavens are yours, the world, everything—for you created them all. ¹² You created north and south! Mount Tabor and Mount Hermon rejoice to be signed by your name as their maker! ¹³ Strong is your arm! Strong is your hand! Your right hand is lifted high in glorious strength.

^14-15 Your throne is founded on two strong pillars—the one is Justice and the other Righteousness. Mercy and Truth walk before you as your attendants. Blessed are those who hear the joyful blast of the trumpet, for they shall walk in the light of your presence. ¹⁶ They rejoice all day long in your wonderful reputation and in your perfect righteousness. ¹⁷ You are their strength. What glory! Our power is based on your favor! ¹⁸ Yes, our protection is from the Lord himself and he, the Holy One of Israel, has given us our king.

33 Manasseh was only twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. ² But it was an evil reign, for he encouraged his people to worship the idols of the heathen nations destroyed by the Lord when the people of Israel entered the land. ³ He rebuilt the heathen altars his father Hezekiah had destroyed—the altars of Baal, and of the shameful images, and of the sun, moon, and stars. ^4-5 He even constructed heathen altars in both courts of the Temple of the Lord for worshiping the sun, moon, and stars—in the very place where the Lord had said that he would be honored forever. ⁶ And Manasseh sacrificed his own children as burnt offerings in the valley of Hinnom. He consulted spirit-mediums, too, and fortune-tellers and sorcerers, and encouraged every sort of evil, making the Lord very angry.

⁷ Think of it! He placed an idol in the very Temple of God, where God had told David and his son Solomon, “I will be honored here in this Temple and in Jerusalem—the city I have chosen to be honored forever above all the other cities of Israel. ⁸ And if you will only obey my commands—all the laws and instructions given to you by Moses—I won’t ever again exile Israel from this land which I gave your ancestors.”

⁹ But Manasseh encouraged the people of Judah and Jerusalem to do even more evil than the nations the Lord destroyed when Israel entered the land. ¹⁰ Warnings from the Lord were ignored by both Manasseh and his people. ¹¹ So God sent the Assyrian armies, and they seized him with hooks and bound him with bronze chains and carted him away to Babylon. ¹² Then at last he came to his senses and cried out humbly to God for help. ¹³ And the Lord listened and answered his plea by returning him to Jerusalem and to his kingdom! At that point Manasseh finally realized that the Lord was really God!

¹⁴ It was after this that he rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David and the wall from west of the spring of Gihon in the Kidron Valley, and then to the Fish Gate, and around Citadel Hill, where it was built very high. And he stationed his army generals in all of the fortified cities of Judah. ¹⁵ He also removed the foreign gods from the hills and took his idol from the Temple, and tore down the altars he had built on the mountain, where the Temple stood, and the altars that were in Jerusalem, and dumped them outside the city. ¹⁶ Then he rebuilt the altar of the Lord and offered sacrifices upon it—peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings—and demanded that the people of Judah worship the Lord God of Israel. ¹⁷ However, the people still sacrificed upon the altars on the hills, but only to the Lord their God.

11 What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead. ² Men of God in days of old were famous for their faith.

³ By faith—by believing God—we know that the world and the stars—in fact, all things—were made at God’s command; and that they were all made from things that can’t be seen.^[a]

⁴ It was by faith that Abel obeyed God and brought an offering that pleased God more than Cain’s offering did. God accepted Abel and proved it by accepting his gift; and though Abel is long dead, we can still learn lessons from him about trusting God.

⁵ Enoch trusted God too, and that is why God took him away to heaven without dying; suddenly he was gone because God took him. Before this happened God had said^[b] how pleased he was with Enoch. ⁶ You can never please God without faith, without depending on him. Anyone who wants to come to God must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely look for him.

⁷ Noah was another who trusted God. When he heard God’s warning about the future, Noah believed him even though there was then no sign of a flood, and wasting no time, he built the ark and saved his family. Noah’s belief in God was in direct contrast to the sin and disbelief of the rest of the world—which refused to obey—and because of his faith he became one of those whom God has accepted.