Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 84
Longing for God’s House
For the choir director: on the Gittith.(A) A psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 How lovely is Your dwelling place,
Lord of Hosts.(B)
2 I long and yearn
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh cry out for[a] the living God.(C)
9 [a]If my head were a spring of water,
my eyes a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night(A)
over the slain of my dear[b] people.
2 [c]If only I had a traveler’s lodging place
in the wilderness,
I would abandon my people
and depart from them,
for they are all adulterers,(B)
a solemn assembly of treacherous people.(C)
3 They bent their tongues like their bows;
lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land,
for they proceed from one evil to another,
and they do not take Me into account.(D)
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Imminent Ruin and Exile
4 Everyone has to be on guard against his friend.
Don’t trust any brother,
for every brother will certainly deceive,
and every friend spread slander.(E)
5 Each one betrays his friend;
no one tells the truth.
They have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they wear themselves out doing wrong.
6 You live in a world of deception.[d]
In their deception they refuse to know Me.(F)
This is the Lord’s declaration.
7 Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says:
I am about to refine them and test them,(G)
for what else can I do
because of My dear[e] people?[f]
8 Their tongues are deadly arrows—
they speak deception.(H)
With his mouth
a man speaks peaceably with his friend,
but inwardly he sets up an ambush.
9 Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself(I)
on such a nation as this?
10 I will raise weeping and a lament
over the mountains,
a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,
for they have been so scorched
that no one passes through.
The sound of cattle is no longer heard.
From the birds of the sky to the animals,(J)
everything has fled—they have gone away.
11 I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble,(K)
a jackals’ den.(L)
I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,
an uninhabited place.
12 Who is the man wise enough to understand this?(M) Who has the Lord spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?
13 The Lord said, “It is because they abandoned My instruction(N) that I set in front of them and did not obey My voice or walk according to it. 14 Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts(O) and followed after the Baals as their fathers taught them.”(P) 15 Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood(Q) and give them poisonous water to drink.(R) 16 I will scatter them among the nations(S) that they and their fathers have not known. I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
Difficult Times Ahead
3 But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days.(A) 2 For people will be lovers of self,(B) lovers of money,(C) boastful, proud,(D) blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,(E) 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers,(F) without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good,(G) 4 traitors,(H) reckless,(I) conceited,(J) lovers of pleasure(K) rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.(L) Avoid these people!(M)
6 For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions,(N) 7 always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.(O) 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres(P) resisted Moses,(Q) so these also resist the truth, men who are corrupt in mind,(R) worthless(S) in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress, for their lack of understanding will be clear to all, as theirs[a] was also.
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