Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
7 “Listen, my people,
for I am making a pronouncement:
Israel, I, God, your God, am testifying against you.
8 I do not rebuke you because of your sacrifices;
indeed, your burnt offerings are continuously before me.
9 I will no longer accept a sacrificial[a] bull from your household;
nor goats from your pens.
10 Indeed, every animal of the forest is mine,
even the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds in the mountains;
indeed, everything that moves in the field is mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
for the world is mine along with everything in it.
13 Why should I eat the flesh of oxen
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a thanksgiving praise;
pay your vows to the Most High.
15 Call on me in the day of distress;
I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.”
7 Jerusalem remembers[a]
her time of affliction and misery;
all her valued belongings[b]
of days gone by,
when her people fell into enemy hands,
with no one to help her,
and her enemies stared at her,
mocking her downfall.
8 Jerusalem sinned greatly,
and she became unclean.[c]
All who honored her now despise her,
because they saw her naked.
She herself groans
and turns her face away.
9 Uncleanness has soiled her skirts,
and she gave no thought to what would follow.
She fell in such a startling way,
with no one to comfort her.
Look, Lord, upon my affliction,
because my enemy is boasting.
10 The adversary seized in his hands
everything she valued.
She watched the nations[d]
enter her sanctuary;
those you forbade to enter
your place of meeting.
11 All her people groaned
as they searched for food.
They traded their valuables in order to eat,
to keep themselves alive.[e]
Look, Lord, and see
how I have become dishonored.
17 These men are dried-up springs, mere clouds driven by a storm. Gloomy darkness is reserved for them. 18 By talking high-sounding nonsense and using sinful cravings of the flesh, they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. 19 Promising them freedom, they themselves are slaves to depravity, for a person is a slave to whatever conquers him.
20 For if, after escaping the world’s corruptions through a full knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Messiah,[a] they are again entangled and conquered by those corruptions,[b] then their last condition is worse than their former one. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and turn their backs on the holy commandment that was committed to them. 22 The proverb is true that describes what has happened to them: “A dog returns to its vomit,”[c] and “A pig that is washed goes back to wallow in the mud.”[d]
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