Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became a byword to them.(A)
12 I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate,
and the drunkards make songs about me.(B)
13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.
With your faithful help(C) 14 rescue me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.(D)
15 Do not let the flood sweep over me
or the deep swallow me up
or the Pit close its mouth over me.(E)
Israel’s Stubborn Idolatry
12 But they say, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.”(A)
13 Therefore thus says the Lord:
Ask among the nations:
Who has heard the like of this?
The virgin Israel has done
a most horrible thing.(B)
14 Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the crags of Sirion?[a]
Do the mountain[b] waters run dry,[c]
the cold flowing streams?
15 But my people have forgotten me;
they burn offerings to a delusion;
they have stumbled[d] in their ways,
in the ancient roads,
and have gone into bypaths,
not the highway,(C)
16 making their land a horror,
a thing to be hissed at forever.
All who pass by it are horrified
and shake their heads.(D)
17 Like the wind from the east,
I will scatter them before the enemy.
I will show them my back, not my face,
in the day of their calamity.(E)
Exaltation through Abasement
5 Now God[a] did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels.(A) 6 But someone has testified somewhere,
“What are humans that you are mindful of them[b]
or mortals that you care for them?[c](B)
7 You have made them for a little while lower[d] than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honor,[e]
8 subjecting all things under their feet.”
Now in subjecting all things to them, God[f] left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them,(C) 9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower[g] than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God[h] he might taste death for everyone.(D)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.