Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

50 The mighty God, the Lord, has summoned all mankind from east to west!

² God’s glory-light shines from the beautiful Temple^[a] on Mount Zion. ³ He comes with the noise of thunder,^[b] surrounded by devastating fire; a great storm rages round about him. ⁴ He has come to judge his people. To heaven and earth he shouts, ⁵ “Gather together my own people who by their sacrifice upon my altar have promised to obey me.”^{[c] 6} God will judge them with complete fairness, for all heaven declares that he is just.

⁷ O my people, listen! For I am your God. Listen! Here are my charges against you: ⁸ I have no complaint about the sacrifices you bring to my altar, for you bring them regularly. ⁹ But it isn’t sacrificial bullocks and goats that I really want from you. ^10-11 For all the animals of field and forest are mine! The cattle on a thousand hills! And all the birds upon the mountains! ¹² If I were hungry, I would not mention it to you—for all the world is mine and everything in it. ¹³ No, I don’t need your sacrifices of flesh and blood. ^14-15 What I want from you is your true thanks; I want your promises fulfilled. I want you to trust me in your times of trouble, so I can rescue you and you can give me glory.

¹⁶ But God says to evil men: Recite my laws no longer and stop claiming my promises, ¹⁷ for you have refused my discipline, disregarding my laws. ¹⁸ You see a thief and help him, and spend your time with evil and immoral men. ¹⁹ You curse and lie, and vile language streams from your mouths. ²⁰ You slander your own brother. ²¹ I remained silent—you thought I didn’t care—but now your time of punishment has come, and I list all the above charges against you. ²² This is the last chance for all of you who have forgotten God, before I tear you apart—and no one can help you then.

²³ But true praise is a worthy sacrifice; this really honors me. Those who walk my paths will receive salvation from the Lord.

7 Another message came to me from the Lord in late November of the fourth year of the reign of King Darius.

² The Jews of the city of Bethel had sent a group of men headed by Sharezer, the chief administrative officer of the king, and Regem-melech, to the Lord’s Temple at Jerusalem, to seek his blessing ³ and to speak with the priests and prophets about whether they must continue their traditional custom of fasting and mourning during the month of August each year, as they had been doing for so long.

⁴ This was the Lord’s reply:

⁵ “When you return to Bethel, say to all your people and your priests, ‘During those seventy years of exile when you fasted and mourned in August and October, were you really in earnest about leaving your sins behind and coming back to me? No, not at all! ⁶ And even now in your holy feasts to God, you don’t think of me, but only of the food and fellowship and fun. ⁷ Long years ago, when Jerusalem was prosperous and her southern suburbs out along the plain were filled with people, the prophets warned them that this attitude would surely lead to ruin, as it has.’”

^8-9 Then this message from the Lord came to Zechariah. “Tell them to be honest and fair—and not to take bribes—and to be merciful and kind to everyone. ¹⁰ Tell them to stop oppressing widows and orphans, foreigners and poor people, and to stop plotting evil against each other. ¹¹ Your fathers would not listen to this message. They turned stubbornly away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing me. ¹² They hardened their hearts like flint, afraid to hear the words that God, the Lord Almighty, commanded them—the laws he had revealed to them by his Spirit through the early prophets. That is why such great wrath came down on them from God. ¹³ I called, but they refused to listen, so when they cried to me, I turned away. ¹⁴ I scattered them as with a whirlwind among the far-off nations. Their land became desolate; no one even traveled through it; the Pleasant Land lay bare and blighted.”

⁵ My answer to them is: Remember this fact—which you know already—that the Lord saved a whole nation of people out of the land of Egypt and then killed every one of them who did not trust and obey him. ⁶ And I remind you of those angels who were once pure and holy but turned to a life of sin.^[a] Now God has them chained up in prisons of darkness, waiting for the judgment day. ⁷ And don’t forget the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, all full of lust of every kind, including lust of men for other men. Those cities were destroyed by fire and continue to be a warning to us that there is a hell in which sinners are punished.

⁸ Yet these false teachers carelessly go right on living their evil, immoral lives, degrading their bodies and laughing at those in authority over them, even scoffing at the Glorious Ones. ⁹ Yet Michael, one of the mightiest of the angels, when he was arguing with Satan about Moses’ body, did not dare to accuse even Satan, or jeer at him, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you.” ¹⁰ But these men mock and curse at anything they do not understand, and like animals, they do whatever they feel like, thereby ruining their souls.

¹¹ Woe upon them! For they follow the example of Cain who killed his brother; and like Balaam, they will do anything for money; and like Korah, they have disobeyed God and will die under his curse.

¹² When these men join you at the love feasts of the church, they are evil smears among you, laughing and carrying on, gorging and stuffing themselves without a thought for others. They are like clouds blowing over dry land without giving rain, promising much, but producing nothing. They are like fruit trees without any fruit at picking time. They are not only dead, but doubly dead, for they have been pulled out, roots and all, to be burned.

¹³ All they leave behind them is shame and disgrace like the dirty foam left along the beach by the wild waves. They wander around looking as bright as stars, but ahead of them is the everlasting gloom and darkness that God has prepared for them.

¹⁴ Enoch, who lived seven generations after Adam, knew about these men and said this about them: “See, the Lord is coming with millions of his holy ones. ¹⁵ He will bring the people of the world before him in judgment, to receive just punishment and to prove the terrible things they have done in rebellion against God, revealing all they have said against him.” ¹⁶ These men are constant gripers, never satisfied, doing whatever evil they feel like; they are loudmouthed “show-offs,” and when they show respect for others, it is only to get something from them in return.

¹⁷ Dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ told you, ¹⁸ that in the last times there would come these scoffers whose whole purpose in life is to enjoy themselves in every evil way imaginable. ¹⁹ They stir up arguments; they love the evil things of the world; they do not have the Holy Spirit living in them.

²⁰ But you, dear friends, must build up your lives ever more strongly upon the foundation of our holy faith, learning to pray in the power and strength of the Holy Spirit.

²¹ Stay always within the boundaries where God’s love can reach and bless you. Wait patiently for the eternal life that our Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy is going to give you.