Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
God Judges the Judges
A song of Asaph.
82 God is in charge of the great meeting of his people.
He judges the judges.
2 He says, “How long will you defend evil people?
How long will you show greater kindness to the wicked? Selah
3 Defend the orphans and the weak.
Defend the rights of the poor and suffering.
4 Save the weak and helpless
from the power of the wicked.
5 “You know nothing. You don’t understand.
You walk in the dark,
while the world is falling apart.
6 I said, ‘You are gods.
You are all sons of the Most High God.’
7 But you will die like any other person.
You will die like all the leaders.”
8 God, come and judge the earth.
You own all the nations.
The Ark of the Covenant of God Is Sent Home
6 The Philistines kept the Ark of the Covenant of God in their land seven months. 2 Then they called for their priests and magicians. They said, “What should we do with the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord? Tell us how to send it back home!”
3 The priests and magicians answered them. They said, “If you send back the Ark of the Covenant of the God of Israel, don’t send it away empty. You must offer a penalty offering so the God of Israel will forgive your sins. Then you will be healed. When God has forgiven you, he will stop punishing you.”
4 The Philistines asked, “What kind of penalty offering should we send to Israel’s God?”
The priests and magicians answered, “Make five gold models of the growths on your skin. Also make five gold models of rats. The number of models must be the same as the number of Philistine kings. This is because the same sickness has come on you and your kings. 5 Make models of the growths and the rats that are ruining the country. Give them to Israel’s God and honor him. Then maybe Israel’s God will stop punishing you, your gods and your land. 6 Don’t be stubborn like the king of Egypt and the Egyptians. God punished them terribly. That is why the Egyptians let the Israelites leave Egypt.
7 “You must build a new cart. And get two cows that have just had calves. These must be cows that have never had yokes on their necks. Then hitch the cows to the cart. Take the calves home. Don’t let them follow their mothers. 8 Put the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord on the cart. And put the gold models in a box beside the Ark of the Covenant. They are your penalty offerings for God to forgive your sins. Send the cart straight on its way. 9 Watch the cart. It may go toward Beth Shemesh in Israel’s own land. If so, the Lord has given us this great sickness. But it may not go toward Beth Shemesh. Then we will know that Israel’s God has not punished us. We will know that our sickness just happened by chance.”
10 The Philistines did what the priests and magicians said. They took two cows that had just had calves. They hitched them to the cart. But they kept their calves at home. 11 They put the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord on the cart. And they put the box with the gold rats and models of growths on the cart. 12 Then the cows went straight toward Beth Shemesh. They stayed on the road, mooing all the way. They did not turn right or left. The Philistine kings followed the cows as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.
13 Now the people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley. They looked up and saw the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. They were very happy to see it again. 14 The cart came to the field belonging to Joshua of Beth Shemesh. The cart stopped in this field near a large rock. The people of Beth Shemesh chopped up the wood of the cart. Then they killed the cows and sacrificed them to the Lord. 15 The Levites took down the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. They also took down the box that had the gold models. They put both on the large rock. That day the people of Beth Shemesh offered whole burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord. 16 The five Philistine kings watched them do all these things. Then they went back to Ekron the same day.
15 “Daniel the prophet spoke about ‘the horrible thing that destroys.’[a] You will see this terrible thing standing in the holy place.” (You who read this should understand what it means.) 16 “At that time, the people in Judea should run away to the mountains. 17 If a person is on the roof[b] of his house, he must not go down to get anything out of his house. 18 If a person is in the field, he must not go back to get his coat. 19 At that time, it will be hard for women who are pregnant or have nursing babies! 20 Pray that it will not be winter or a Sabbath day when these things happen and you have to run away. 21 This is because at that time there will be much trouble. There will be more trouble than has ever happened since the beginning of the world. And nothing as bad as that will ever happen again. 22 God has decided to make that terrible time short. If that time were not made short, then no one would go on living. But God will make that time short to help the people he has chosen. 23 At that time, someone might say to you, ‘Look, there is the Christ!’ Or another person might say, ‘There he is!’ But don’t believe them. 24 False Christs and false prophets will come and perform great things and miracles. They will do these things to the people God has chosen. They will fool them, if that is possible. 25 Now I have warned you about this before it happens.
26 “If people tell you, ‘The Christ is in the desert’—don’t go there. If they say, ‘The Christ is in the inner room’—don’t believe it. 27 When the Son of Man comes, he will be seen by everyone. It will be like lightning flashing in the sky that can be seen everywhere.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.