Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ Jehovah is kind and merciful, slow to get angry, full of love. ⁹ He is good to everyone, and his compassion is intertwined with everything he does. ¹⁰ All living things shall thank you, Lord, and your people will bless you. ¹¹ They will talk together about the glory of your kingdom and mention examples of your power. ¹² They will tell about your miracles and about the majesty and glory of your reign. ¹³ For your kingdom never ends. You rule generation after generation.

¹⁴ The Lord lifts the fallen and those bent beneath their loads.

4 Then the angel who had been talking with me woke me, as though I had been asleep.

² “What do you see now?” he asked.

I answered, “I see a gold lampstand holding seven lamps, and at the top there is a reservoir for the olive oil that feeds the lamps, flowing into them through seven tubes. ³ And I see two olive trees carved upon the lampstand, one on each side of the reservoir. ⁴ What is it, sir?” I asked. “What does this mean?”

⁵ “Don’t you really know?” the angel asked.

“No, sir,” I said, “I don’t.”

⁶ Then he said, “This is God’s message to Zerubbabel:^[a] ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty—you will succeed because of my Spirit, though you are few and weak.’ ⁷ Therefore no mountain, however high, can stand before Zerubbabel! For it will flatten out before him! And Zerubbabel will finish building this Temple^[b] with mighty shouts of thanksgiving for God’s mercy, declaring that all was done by grace alone.”

²¹ Then he was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the intellectuals and worldly wise and for revealing them to those who are as trusting as little children.^[a] Yes, thank you, Father, for that is the way you wanted it. ²² I am the Agent of my Father in everything; and no one really knows the Son except the Father, and no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

²³ Then, turning to the twelve disciples, he said quietly, “How privileged you are to see what you have seen. ²⁴ Many a prophet and king of old has longed for these days, to see and hear what you have seen and heard!”