Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
God the Righteous Judge
A Psalm of Asaph.
50 The (A)Mighty One, God the Lord,
Has spoken and called the earth
From the rising of the sun to its going down.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
(B)God will shine forth.
3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;
(C)A fire shall devour before Him,
And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.
4 (D)He shall call to the heavens from above,
And to the earth, that He may judge His people:
5 “Gather (E)My saints together to Me,
(F)Those who have [a]made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
6 Let the (G)heavens declare His righteousness,
For (H)God Himself is Judge. Selah
7 “Hear, O My people, and I will speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against you;
(I)I am God, your God!
8 (J)I will not [b]rebuke you (K)for your sacrifices
Or your burnt offerings,
Which are continually before Me.
9 (L)I will not take a bull from your house,
Nor goats out of your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is Mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
(M)For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.
13 (N)Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
14 (O)Offer to God thanksgiving,
And (P)pay your vows to the Most High.
15 (Q)Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”
16 But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
17 (R)Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?
18 When you saw a thief, you (S)consented[c] with him,
And have been a (T)partaker with adulterers.
19 You give your mouth to evil,
And (U)your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things you have done, and I kept silent;
(V)You thought that I was altogether like you;
But I will rebuke you,
And (W)set them in order before your eyes.
Obedience Better than Fasting
7 Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev, 2 when [a]the people sent [b]Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to [c]the house of God, [d]to pray before the Lord, 3 and to (A)ask the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in (B)the fifth month and [e]fast as I have done for so many years?”
4 Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, 5 “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you (C)fasted and mourned in the fifth (D)and seventh months (E)during those seventy years, did you really fast (F)for Me—for Me? 6 (G)When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? 7 Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the (H)former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and (I)the [f]South and the Lowland were inhabited?’ ”
Disobedience Resulted in Captivity
8 Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts:
(J)‘Execute true justice,
Show [g]mercy and compassion
Everyone to his brother.
10 (K)Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless,
The alien or the poor.
(L)Let none of you plan evil in his heart
Against his brother.’
11 “But they refused to heed, (M)shrugged[h] their shoulders, and (N)stopped[i] their ears so that they could not hear. 12 Yes, they made their (O)hearts like flint, (P)refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. (Q)Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. 13 Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so (R)they called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts. 14 “But (S)I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”
Old and New Apostates
5 But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that (A)the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their [a]proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; 7 as (B)Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the [b]vengeance of eternal fire.
8 (C)Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and (D)speak evil of [c]dignitaries. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, in [d]contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, (E)“The Lord rebuke you!” 10 (F)But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone in the way (G)of Cain, (H)have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished (I)in the rebellion of Korah.
Apostates Depraved and Doomed
12 These are [e]spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried [f]about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; 13 (J)raging waves of the sea, (K)foaming up their own shame; wandering stars (L)for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the (M)harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
Apostates Predicted
16 These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they (N)mouth great swelling words, (O)flattering people to gain advantage. 17 (P)But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 how they told you that (Q)there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. 19 These are [g]sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.
Maintain Your Life with God
20 But you, beloved, (R)building yourselves up on your most holy faith, (S)praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, (T)looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.