Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Psalm of Asaph
Asking God for Justice
2 “How long will you judge partially
by showing favor on the wicked?[c]
3 “Defend the poor and the fatherless.
Vindicate the afflicted and the poor.
4 Rescue the poor and the needy,
delivering them from the power of the wicked.
5 They neither know nor understand;
they walk about in the dark
while all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 “Indeed I said, ‘You are gods,
and all of you are sons of the Most High.
7 However, as all human beings do, you will die,
and like other rulers, you will fall.’
8 Arise, God, to judge the earth,
for all nations belong to you.
The Philistines Return the Ark to Israel
6 The Ark of the Lord remained in Philistine territory[a] for seven months. 2 The Philistines summoned the priests and diviners and asked, “What should we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it back to its place.”
3 They said, “If you send the Ark of the God of Israel back, don’t send it empty, but rather be sure to send back to him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed and will know why his oppression[b] has not been removed from you.”
4 They asked, “What is the guilt offering that we should send back to him?”
“Five gold tumors and five gold mice,” they answered, “according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, since the same plague was on all of you and on your lords. 5 Make images of your tumors and images of the mice that are destroying your land, and you are to give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will remove his pressure from you, your gods, and your land. 6 Why should you harden your hearts just as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? Isn’t it true that after God[c] toyed with them, they let Israel[d] go, and off they went?
7 “So make a new cart, and take two milk cows that have never had a yoke on them. Hitch the cows to the cart and take their calves away from them and back to the house. 8 Take the Ark of the Lord, put it on the cart, and put the gold objects that you are returning to him as a guilt offering in a box beside it. Then send it away and let it go. 9 Keep watching it. If it goes up along the road to its own territory to Beth-shemesh, it’s the Lord[e] who has done this great evil to us. But if it does not, then we will know that he wasn’t pressuring us. It happened to us as a natural event.”
10 The men did this. They took two milk cows, hitched them to the cart, and penned up their calves in the house. 11 They put the Ark of the Lord, the box, the gold mice, and the images of their tumors on the cart. 12 The cows took a straight path along the road to Beth-shemesh. They stayed on the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn to the right or the left. The Philistine lords followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
13 Now the people of Beth-shemesh were gathering their wheat harvest in the valley. They looked up, saw the Ark, and rejoiced to see it. 14 The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh, and stopped there. In that place there was a large stone. They broke up the wood from the cart, and offered up the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. 15 The descendants of Levi took down the Ark of the Lord, along with the box that was with it, containing the objects of gold, and they put them on the large stone. The men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord that day. 16 When the five Philistine lords saw this, they returned to Ekron that very day.
Signs of the End(A)
15 “So when you see the destructive desecration, mentioned by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place (let the reader take note),[a] 16 then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. 17 Anyone who’s on the housetop must not come down to get what is in his house, 18 and anyone who’s in the field must not turn back to get his coat.
19 “How terrible it will be for women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days! 20 Pray that it may not be in winter or on a Sabbath when you flee, 21 because at that time there will be great suffering,[b] the kind that hasn’t happened from the beginning of the world until now and certainly won’t ever happen again. 22 If those days hadn’t been shortened, no one[c] would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.
23 “At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look here! The Messiah!’[d] or ‘There he is!’,[e] don’t believe it, 24 because false messiahs[f] and false prophets will have arisen and will produce great signs and startling demonstrations so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 Remember, I’ve told you beforehand. 26 So if they say to you, ‘Look! He’s in the wilderness,’ don’t go out looking for him.[g] And if they say, ‘Look! He’s in the storeroom,’ don’t believe it, 27 because just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Copyright © 1995-2014 by ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC.