Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
50 The God of gods, The LORD, has spoken and called the Earth, from the rising up of the Sun to the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, has God shined.
3 Our God shall come and shall not keep silent. A fire shall devour before Him, and a mighty storm shall be moved around Him.
4 He shall call the heaven above and the Earth, to judge His people.
5 “Gather My saints together to Me, those who make a covenant with Me with sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens shall declare His righteousness; for God is Judge Himself. Selah.
7 “Hear, O My people, and I will speak. Hear, O Israel, and I will testify to you. I am God. Your God.
8 “I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings continually before me.
9 “I will take no bullock out of your house, nor goats out of your folds.
10 “For all the beasts of the forest are Mine, the beasts on a thousand mountains.
11 “I know all the birds on the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12 “If I am hungry, I will not tell you. For the world is Mine and all that therein is.
13 “Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
14 “Offer praise to God; and pay your vows to the Most High.
15 “And call upon Me on the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify Me.”
16 But to the wicked God said, “Why have you declared My ordinances, that you would take My Covenant in your mouth,
17 “seeing you hate to be reformed and have cast My words behind you?
18 “For when you see a thief, you run with him; and you are partaker with the adulterers.
19 “You give your mouth to evil; and with your tongue you forge deceit.
20 “You sit and speak against your brother and slander your mother’s son.
21 “These things you have done; and I held My tongue. Therefore, you thought that I was like you. But I will rebuke you and set them in order before your eyes.
22 “Oh, consider this, you who forget God; lest I tear you in pieces and there are none who can deliver you.
23 “He who offers praise shall glorify Me. And to him who sets his way aright, I will show the salvation of God.” To him who excels: A Psalm of David, when the Prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone into Bathsheba.
7 And in the fourth year of King Darius, the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, during Chislev.
2 For they had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melech and their men to the House of God, to pray before the LORD,
3 and to speak to the priests who were in the House of the LORD of Hosts, and to the Prophets, saying, “Should I weep during the fifth month and separate myself, as I have done these so many years?”
4 Then came the Word of the LORD of Hosts to me, saying:
5 “Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, and say, “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, for seventy years, did you fast for Me? For Me?
6 “And when you ate, and when you drank, did you not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?
7 “Should you not hear the Words which the LORD has cried by the ministry of the former Prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited, and in prosperity, and its cities all around her, when the South and the plain were inhabited?”
8 And the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying:
9 “Thus speaks the LORD of Hosts, saying: ‘Execute true judgment. And show mercy and compassion, every man to his brother.
10 ‘And do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor. And let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
11 ‘But they refused to listen. And pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears, so that they would not hear.
12 ‘Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they hear the Law and the Words which the LORD of Hosts sent in His Spirit, by the ministry of the former Prophets. Therefore, a great wrath came from the LORD of Hosts.
13 ‘Therefore, it happens at this time that as he cried and they would not hear, so they cried and I would not hear,’ says the LORD of Hosts.
14 ‘But I scattered them among all the nations whom they did not know. Thus, the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through or returned. For they laid the pleasant land waste.’”
5 Therefore, I will remind you (since you once knew this) how that the Lord - after He had delivered the people out of Egypt - destroyed those afterward who did not believe.
6 Also, the angels who did not keep their first estate - but left their own habitation - He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness until the judgment of the great Day;
7 as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them which committed fornication and followed strange flesh in the same way they did are set forth as an example and suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also, these dreamers defile the flesh and despise government and speak evil of those who are in authority.
9 Yet Michael, the archangel, when he strove against the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, did not dare speak evil against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
10 But these speak evil of those things which they do not know. And whatever things they know naturally (as beasts which are without reason), in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 Woe to them! For they have followed the way of Cain and are cast away by the deceit of Balaam’s wages, and perish in the rebellion of Korah!
12 These are reefs in your feasts of charity; feasting with you, shamelessly feeding themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by winds; corrupt trees without fruit, twice dead and plucked up by the roots.
13 They are the raging waves of the sea, foaming forth their own disgrace. They are wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
14 And Enoch also - the seventh from Adam - prophesied of such, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with thousands of his saints
15 to give judgment against all, and to rebuke all the ungodly among them of all their wicked deeds which they have ungodly committed; and of all their cruel speech which wicked sinners have spoken against Him.”
16 These are murmurers, complainers (walking after their own lusts), whose mouths speak proud things; admiring others for the sake of advantage.
17 But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;
18 how that they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19 These are those who cause division from others; bestial, not having the Spirit.
20 But you, beloved, edify yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.
21 And keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life.
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