Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

²³ Oh, that the words I now speak were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book [carved on a tablet of stone]!

²⁴ That with an iron pen and [molten] lead they were graven in the rock forever!

²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives, and at last He [the Last One] will stand upon the earth.^(A)

²⁶ And after my skin, even this body, has been destroyed, then from my flesh or without it I shall see God,

²⁷ Whom I, even I, shall see for myself and on my side! And my eyes shall behold Him, and not as a stranger! My heart pines away and is consumed within me.

Psalm 17

A Prayer of David.

¹ Hear the right (my righteous cause), O Lord; listen to my shrill, piercing cry! Give ear to my prayer, that comes from unfeigned and guileless lips.

² Let my sentence of vindication come from You! May Your eyes behold the things that are just and upright.

³ You have proved my heart; You have visited me in the night; You have tried me and find nothing [no evil purpose in me]; I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

⁴ Concerning the works of men, by the word of Your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent (the paths of the destroyer).

⁵ My steps have held closely to Your paths [to the tracks of the One Who has gone on before]; my feet have not slipped.

⁶ I have called upon You, O God, for You will hear me; incline Your ear to me and hear my speech.

⁷ Show Your marvelous loving-kindness, O You Who save by Your right hand those who trust and take refuge in You from those who rise up against them.

⁸ Keep and guard me as the pupil of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings

⁹ From the wicked who despoil and oppress me, my deadly adversaries who surround me.

2 But relative to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and our gathering together to [meet] Him, we beg you, brethren,

² Not to allow your minds to be quickly unsettled or disturbed or kept excited or alarmed, whether it be by some [pretended] revelation of [the] Spirit or by word or by letter [alleged to be] from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has [already] arrived and is here.

³ Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the ^[a]apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great ^[b]falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed, who is the son of doom (of perdition),^(A)

⁴ Who opposes and exalts himself so proudly and insolently against and over all that is called God or that is worshiped, [even to his actually] taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.^(B)

⁵ Do you not recollect that when I was still with you, I told you these things?

¹³ But we, brethren beloved by the Lord, ought and are obligated [as those who are in debt] to give thanks always to God for you, because God chose you from the beginning ^[a]as His firstfruits (first converts) for salvation through the sanctifying work of the [Holy] Spirit and [your] belief in (adherence to, trust in, and reliance on) the Truth.

¹⁴ [It was] to this end that He called you through our Gospel, so that you may obtain and share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

¹⁵ So then, brethren, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions and instructions which you were taught by us, whether by our word of mouth or by letter.

¹⁶ Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, Who loved us and gave us everlasting consolation and encouragement and well-founded hope through [His] grace (unmerited favor),

¹⁷ Comfort and encourage your hearts and strengthen them [make them steadfast and keep them unswerving] in every good work and word.

²⁷ Also there came to Him some Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection.

²⁸ And they asked Him a question, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote for us [a law] that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife and no children, the man shall take the woman and raise up offspring for his brother.^(A)

²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; and the first took a wife and died without [having any] children.

³⁰ And the second

³¹ And then the third took her, and in like manner all seven, and they died, leaving no children.

³² Last of all, the woman died also.

³³ Now in the resurrection whose wife will the woman be? For the seven married her.

³⁴ And Jesus said to them, The people of this world and present age marry and are given in marriage;

³⁵ But those who are considered worthy to gain that other world and that future age and to attain to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage;

³⁶ For they cannot die again, but they are ^[a]angel-like and ^[b]equal to angels. And being sons of and ^[c]sharers in the resurrection, they are sons of God.

³⁷ But that the dead are raised [^[d]from death]—even Moses made known and showed in the passage concerning the [burning] bush, where he calls the Lord, The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.^(B)

³⁸ Now He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all men are alive [whether in the body or out of it] and they are alive [not dead] unto Him [in definite relationship to Him].