Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
7 “Listen, My people, and I will speak;
I will testify against you, Israel.
I am God, your God.(A)
8 I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices
or for your burnt offerings,
which are continually before Me.(B)
9 I will not accept a bull from your household
or male goats from your pens,(C)
10 for every animal of the forest is Mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird of the mountains,[a]
and the creatures of the field are Mine.(D)
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and everything in it is Mine.(E)
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?(F)
14 Sacrifice a thank offering to God,(G)
and pay your vows to the Most High.(H)
15 Call on Me in a day of trouble;
I will rescue you, and you will honor Me.”(I)
ז Zayin
7 During the days of her affliction and homelessness(A)
Jerusalem remembers all her precious belongings
that were hers in days of old.
When her people fell into the adversary’s hand,
she had no one to help.
The adversaries looked at her,
laughing over her downfall.
ח Khet
8 Jerusalem has sinned grievously;
therefore, she has become an object of scorn.[a]
All who honored her now despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness.
She herself groans and turns away.
ט Tet
9 Her uncleanness stains her skirts.(B)
She never considered her end.
Her downfall was astonishing;(C)
there was no one to comfort her.
Lord, look on my affliction,
for the enemy triumphs!
י Yod
10 The adversary has seized
all her precious belongings.
She has even seen the nations
enter her sanctuary—
those You had forbidden
to enter Your assembly.(D)
כ Kaf
17 These people are springs without water, mists driven by a whirlwind. The gloom of darkness has been reserved for them.(A) 18 For by uttering boastful, empty words,(B) they seduce, with fleshly desires and debauchery, people who have barely escaped[a] from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, since people are enslaved to whatever defeats them.(C) 20 For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,(D) they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first.(E) 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness(F) than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command(G) delivered(H) to them.(I) 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to its own vomit,(J)[b] and, “a sow, after washing itself, wallows in the mud.”
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