Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
141 Quick, Lord, answer me—for I have prayed. Listen when I cry to you for help! 2 Regard my prayer as my evening sacrifice and as incense wafting up to you.
3 Help me, Lord, to keep my mouth shut and my lips sealed. 4 Take away my lust for evil things; don’t let me want to be with sinners, doing what they do, sharing their delicacies. 5 Let the godly smite me! It will be a kindness! If they reprove me, it is medicine! Don’t let me refuse it. But I am in constant prayer against the wicked and their deeds. 6-7 When their leaders are condemned, and their bones are strewn across the ground,[a] then these men will finally listen to me and know that I am trying to help them.
8 I look to you for help, O Lord God. You are my refuge. Don’t let them slay me. 9 Keep me out of their traps. 10 Let them fall into their own snares, while I escape.
21 “Thus I will demonstrate my glory among the nations; all shall see the punishment of Gog and know that I have done it. 22 And from that time onward the people of Israel will know I am the Lord their God. 23 And the nations will know why Israel was sent away to exile—it was punishment for sin, for they acted in treachery against their God. Therefore, I turned my face away from them and let their enemies destroy them. 24 I turned my face away and punished them in proportion to the vileness of their sins.
25 “But now,” the Lord God says, “I will end the captivity of my people and have mercy upon them and restore their fortunes, for I am concerned about my reputation! 26 Their time of treachery and shame will all be in the past; they will be home again, in peace and safety in their own land, with no one bothering them or making them afraid. 27 I will bring them home from the lands of their enemies—and my glory shall be evident to all the nations when I do it. Through them I will vindicate my holiness before the nations. 28 Then my people will know I am the Lord their God—responsible for sending them away to exile, and responsible for bringing them home. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations. 29 And I will never hide my face from them again, for I will pour out my Spirit upon them,” says the Lord God.
40 Early in April of the twenty-fifth year of our exile—the fourteenth year after Jerusalem was captured—the hand of the Lord was upon me, 2 and in a vision he took me to the land of Israel and set me down on a high mountain where I saw what appeared to be a city opposite me. 3 Going nearer, I saw a man whose face shone like bronze, standing beside the Temple gate,[a] holding in his hand a measuring tape and a measuring stick.
4 He said to me: “Son of dust, watch and listen and take to heart everything I show you, for you have been brought here so I can show you many things; and then you are to return to the people of Israel to tell them all you have seen.”
23 You are certainly free to eat food offered to idols if you want to; it’s not against God’s laws to eat such meat, but that doesn’t mean that you should go ahead and do it. It may be perfectly legal, but it may not be best and helpful. 24 Don’t think only of yourself. Try to think of the other fellow, too, and what is best for him.
25 Here’s what you should do. Take any meat you want that is sold at the market. Don’t ask whether or not it was offered to idols, lest the answer hurt your conscience. 26 For the earth and every good thing in it belongs to the Lord and is yours to enjoy.
27 If someone who isn’t a Christian asks you out to dinner, go ahead; accept the invitation if you want to. Eat whatever is on the table and don’t ask any questions about it. Then you won’t know whether or not it has been used as a sacrifice to idols, and you won’t risk having a bad conscience over eating it. 28 But if someone warns you that this meat has been offered to idols, then don’t eat it for the sake of the man who told you, and of his conscience. 29 In this case his feeling about it is the important thing, not yours.
But why, you may ask, must I be guided and limited by what someone else thinks? 30 If I can thank God for the food and enjoy it, why let someone spoil everything just because he thinks I am wrong? 31 Well, I’ll tell you why. It is because you must do everything for the glory of God, even your eating and drinking. 32 So don’t be a stumbling block to anyone, whether they are Jews or Gentiles or Christians. 33 That is the plan I follow, too. I try to please everyone in everything I do, not doing what I like or what is best for me but what is best for them, so that they may be saved.
11 And you should follow my example, just as I follow Christ’s.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.