Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
50 The Mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.
3 Our God shall come and shall not keep silence; a devouring fire shall go before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him.
4 He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth, that He may judge His people:
5 “Gather My saints together unto Me, those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens shall declare His righteousness, for God Himself is judge. Selah
7 “Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.
8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before Me.
9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor hegoats out of thy folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is Mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11 I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12 If I were hungry I would not tell thee, for the world is Mine and the fullness thereof.
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 “Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High,
15 and call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.”
16 But unto the wicked God saith: “What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, or that thou shouldest take My covenant in thy mouth,
17 seeing thou hatest instruction and castest My words behind thee?
18 When thou sawest a thief, then thou consented with him, and thou hast been partaker with adulterers.
19 Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit.
20 Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son.
21 These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself. But I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes.
22 “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver:
23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me; and to him that ordereth his manner of living aright, I will show the salvation of God.”
7 And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu,
2 when they had sent Sherezer and Regemmelech and their men unto the house of God to pray before the Lord,
3 and to speak unto the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done these so many years?”
4 Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying,
5 “Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month even those seventy years, did ye fast at all unto Me, even to Me?
6 And when ye ate and when ye drank, did not ye eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
7 Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?’”
8 And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying,
9 “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, ‘Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother.
10 And oppress not the widow nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.’
11 But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.
12 Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.
13 “Therefore it has come to pass that as He cried and they would not hear, so they cried and I would not hear,” saith the Lord of hosts.
14 “But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned; for they laid the pleasant land desolate.”
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who believed not.
6 And the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great Day—
7 even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also, these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil and disputing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke thee!”
10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not; but what they come to know naturally as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain and have run greedily after the error of Balaam for their reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah.
12 These are spots on your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about by winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13 raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints
15 to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all who are ungodly among them of all their godless deeds which they have godlessly committed, and of all the harsh speeches which godless sinners have spoken against Him.”
16 These are murmurers and complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, giving admiration to men’s persons to gain advantage.
17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
18 how they told you that there would be mockers in the last times who would walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
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