Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Job’s Confidence in His Defender
23 “I wish now my words were written.
I wish they were inscribed on a scroll.
24 I wish they were forever engraved on a rock
with an iron stylus and lead.
25 But I know that my defender lives,
and afterwards, he will rise on the earth.
26 Even after my skin has been stripped off my body,
I will see God in my own flesh.
27 I will see him with my own eyes,
not with someone else’s.
My heart fails inside me!
A prayer by David.
17 Hear my plea for justice, O Lord.
Pay attention to my cry.
Open your ears to my prayer,
⌞which comes⌟ from lips free from deceit.
2 Let the verdict of my innocence come directly from you.
Let your eyes observe what is fair.
3 You have probed my heart.
You have confronted me at night.
You have tested me like silver,
but you found nothing wrong.
I have determined that my mouth will not sin.
4 I have avoided cruelty because of your word.
In spite of what others have done,
5 my steps have remained firmly in your paths.
My feet have not slipped.
6 I have called on you because you answer me, O God.
Turn your ear toward me.
Hear what I have to say.
7 Reveal your miraculous deeds of mercy,
O Savior of those who find refuge by your side
from those who attack them.
8 Guard me as if I were the pupil in your eye.
Hide me in the shadow of your wings.
9 Hide me from wicked people who violently attack me,
from my deadly enemies who surround me.
Don’t Be Deceived about the Day of the Lord
2 Brothers and sisters, we have this request to make of you about our Lord Jesus Christ’s coming and our gathering to meet him. 2 Don’t get upset right away or alarmed when someone claims that we said through some spirit, conversation, or letter that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you about this in any way. ⌞That day cannot come unless⌟ a revolt takes place first, and the man of sin, the man of destruction, is revealed. 4 He opposes every so-called god or anything that is worshiped and places himself above them, sitting in God’s temple and claiming to be God.
5 Don’t you remember that I told you about these things when I was still with you?
Paul Encourages the Thessalonians
13 We always have to thank God for you, brothers and sisters. You are loved by the Lord and we thank God that in the beginning he chose you to be saved through a life of spiritual devotion and faith in the truth. 14 With this in mind he called you by the Good News which we told you so that you would obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 Then, brothers and sisters, firmly hold on to the traditions we taught you either when we spoke to you or in our letter.
16 God our Father loved us and by his kindness [a] gave us everlasting encouragement and good hope. Together with our Lord Jesus Christ, 17 may he encourage and strengthen you to do and say everything that is good.
The Dead Come Back to Life(A)
27 Some Sadducees, who say that people will never come back to life, came to Jesus. They asked him, 28 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If a married man dies and has no children, his brother should marry his widow and have children for his brother.’ 29 There were seven brothers. The first got married and died without having children. 30 Then the second brother married the widow, 31 and so did the third. In the same way all seven brothers married the widow, died, and left no children. 32 Finally, the woman died. 33 Now, when the dead come back to life, whose wife will she be? The seven brothers had married her.”
34 Jesus said to them, “In this world people get married. 35 But people who are considered worthy to come back to life and live in the next world will neither marry 36 nor die anymore. They are the same as the angels. They are God’s children who have come back to life.
37 “Even Moses showed in the passage about the bush that the dead come back to life. He says that the Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 38 He’s not the God of the dead but of the living. In God’s sight all people are living.”
Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God’s Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.