Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 50^[a]

The Worship Acceptable to God

¹ A psalm of Asaph.^[b]

Chapter 7^[a]

Must I Continue to Do Penance? ¹ In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev. ^2 [b]Bethel-sarezer sent Regem-melech and his men to entreat the favor of the Lord ^3 [c]and to ask the priests in the house of the Lord, and the prophets, “Should I continue to mourn and to fast in the fifth month, as I have been doing for these many years?”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: ⁵ Say to all the people of the country and to the priests: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and the seventh month during these seventy years, was it truly for my sake that you fasted? ⁶ And when you were eating and drinking, were you not eating and drinking for yourselves? ⁷ Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed through the prophets in the past, when Jerusalem was inhabited and enjoying peace, as were her surrounding towns, and when the Negeb and the foothills were inhabited?

⁸ This word of the Lord came to Zechariah: ⁹ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render fair judgments, and show kindness and compassion to one another. ¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor. Do not plot evil in your heart against one another. ¹¹ But they refused to listen; they defiantly turned their backs and stopped their ears so that they would not hear. ¹² They were adamant in their refusal to accept the teaching and the law that the Lord of hosts had transmitted by his Spirit through the former prophets.

Therefore, the wrath of the Lord of hosts was aroused. ¹³ Since they refused to listen when he called to them, he in turn would not listen when they cried out to the Lord of hosts. ¹⁴ Rather, he scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations where they were strangers. Therefore, the land they left was desolate after their departure, and no one came or went. They had turned their pleasant land into a desert.

Character and Doom of the False Teachers.^{[a] 5} Although you already know all this, allow me to remind you that the Lord, who once delivered the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who refused to believe.^{[b] 6} Remember also that the angels, who were dissatisfied with the dominion that had been assigned to them and abandoned their proper dwelling place, have been kept bound by him in darkness with eternal chains until the judgment of the great Day.^{[c] 7} And do not fail to remember Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities, which in a similar way indulged in sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who undergo the punishment of eternal fire.^[d]

⁸ In the same way, these dreamers defile their bodies, make light of authority, and insult celestial beings.^{[e] 9} Even the archangel Michael, when he engaged in an argument with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but instead said: “May the Lord rebuke you!”^{[f] 10} However, these people pour abuse on anything they do not understand, and the very things that they know by instinct, like irrational animals, lead to their destruction.

¹¹ Woe to them! They have followed in the footsteps of Cain; they have abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam for the sake of gain; and they have perished in the rebellion of Korah.^{[g] 12 [h]}They are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without fear. They are shepherds who feed only themselves. They are like clouds blown about by winds without giving rain, or like trees in autumn barren and uprooted and so twice dead. ¹³ They are like wild sea waves whose foam reflects their shameless deeds, or like wandering stars for whom the gloom of darkness is stored up forever. ^14 [i]Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, also prophesied against them when he said, “Behold, the Lord is coming with tens of thousands of his saints, ¹⁵ to pronounce judgment on humanity and to convict all the ungodly for all the godless deeds that each has impiously committed and for all the defiant words spoken against him by godless sinners.” ¹⁶ These are grumblers and fault-finders. They indulge their own passions,^[j] and their mouths are full of bombastic talk as they flatter others in order to achieve their own ends.

¹⁷ Appeal to the Faithful. But you, dear friends, must remember the predictions made by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.^{[k] 18} For they said to you, “In the final age there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly passions.”^{[l] 19} It is these people who create divisions, who follow their natural instincts and do not possess the Spirit.

²⁰ A Program of the Christian Life.^[m] However, you, dear friends, must build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. ²¹ Keep yourselves in the love of God as you await our Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy, who will grant you eternal life.