Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 84[a]
Longing for God’s Dwelling
1 For the director.[b] “Upon the gittith.” A psalm of the sons of Korah.
2 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts.[c]
3 My soul yearns and is filled with longing
for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
4 Just as the sparrow searches for a home
and the swallow builds a nest for herself
where she may place her young,
so do I seek your altars,[d]
O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
5 Blessed[e] are those who dwell in your house;
they offer continuous praise to you. Selah
6 Blessed are those who find strength in you,
who set their hearts upon your ways.[f]
7 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they turn it into a region of springs,
and the early rain covers it with pools.[g]
Chapter 9
A Faithless People
1 Oh, if only my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears
so that I might weep day and night
for the slain of the daughter of my people.
2 Would that I could find in the desert
a wayside shelter for travelers
so that I might depart from my people
and leave them far behind.
For all of them are adulterers,
a faithless mob of traitors.
3 Their tongues are like devious weapons,
bent like a drawn bow.
With falsehood rather than truth
they have gained power in the land.
They commit one crime after another,
but they do not acknowledge me, says the Lord.
4 Each of you should be on guard against your neighbor
and place no trust in a brother.
For everyone seeks to supplant his brother, as Jacob did,
and every friend is a slanderer.
5 They all deceive each other;
no one speaks the truth.
They have trained their tongues in the art of lying;
immersed in iniquity, they cannot repent.
6 With their repeated acts of oppression and deceit,
they refuse to acknowledge me, says the Lord.
7 Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts:
Now I will refine and test them.
How else should I deal with this people?
8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
their mouth utters words of deceit.
They speak cordially with their neighbors,
but inwardly, they are plotting to ambush them.
9 For such deceitful dealings
shall I not punish them, says the Lord,
and shall I not exact vengeance
on such a nation?
Dirge over Zion
10 Raise up cries of weeping and lamentation for the mountains
and chant a dirge for the pasture lands,
because they have been so scorched
that no one passes there,
and the lowing of cattle is not heard.
Birds of the air and the animals:
all have fled and are gone.
11 I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins,
a lair for jackals,
and I will lay waste the towns of Judah
so that no one can live there.
12 Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been commanded by the Lord to make it known? Why has the land been ravaged and laid waste like a desert through which no one is able to pass? 13 The Lord says, “This was permitted to happen because they have rejected my law which I set before them, and they have not followed it or listened to my voice. 14 Rather, they have stubbornly obeyed the wishes of their own hearts and followed the Baals, as their ancestors had taught them.”
15 Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Now I will give this people wormwood to eat and poisoned water to drink. 16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have completely annihilated them.”
The Tasks of a Man of God[a]
Chapter 3
Repulse the Onslaughts of False Teachers. 1 You must realize that there will be great distress in the last days. 2 People will love nothing but themselves and money. They will be boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, 3 and devoid of natural affection. They will be implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, and haters of everything that is good. 4 They will be treacherous, reckless, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God 5 as they maintain the appearance of godliness[b] but deny its power. Avoid persons like that!
6 They are the type who insinuate themselves into households and gain control of the women there who are burdened by their sins and obsessed with their desires, 7 and who are always seeking to be taught but unable to ever arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men, with their depraved minds and their deceitful pretense of faith, also oppose the truth. 9 But they will not succeed in their efforts. As was the case with those men, their folly will become obvious to everyone.
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