Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

This is a song that David wrote.

A prayer for help in trouble^[a]

¹⁷ The Lord gave this message to me: ¹⁸ ‘Son of man, shake with fear while you eat your food or you drink your water. ¹⁹ Then say to the people of Israel, “This is what the Almighty Lord says about the people who live in Jerusalem and in all the land of Israel: They will be afraid while they eat their food. They will shake with fear when they drink their water. An enemy will destroy their land so that nothing remains in it. This will happen because all the people who live there have done violent things. ²⁰ The towns where people live will become heaps of stones. An enemy will destroy the whole land. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” ’

²¹ The Lord gave this message to me: ²² ‘Son of man, you have this proverb in the land of Israel: “A long time passes and visions never truly happen.” ²³ But you must say to them, “This is what the Almighty Lord says: I will soon stop you from saying the words of that proverb.” Instead, say to them “The time will soon be here when every vision will truly happen. ²⁴ Israel's people will no longer have visions that are false. Nobody will prophesy things that deceive people. ²⁵ But I, the Lord, will speak. Whatever I say will certainly happen. It will happen very soon. Understand this, you people who refuse to obey me. I will do this while you are still alive. I will do all the things that I have said. That is what the Almighty Lord says.” ’

²⁶ The Lord gave this message to me: ²⁷ ‘Son of man, listen to what Israel's people are saying about you! They say, “The things that you see in your vision will not happen for many years. It will be a long time before his messages become true.” ²⁸ So say to them, “This is what the Almighty Lord says: I will not wait any longer to do what I have said. I will do everything that I have told you. That is what the Almighty Lord says.” ’

¹¹ My Christian friends, do not say bad things against each other. If you speak against another believer, you are really speaking against God's Law. If you judge another believer, then you are judging the law too. When you do that, you are not obeying the Law. You are giving yourself authority to decide what the Law says. ¹² God is the one who gave his Law to people. Only he has the authority to judge whether people have done what is right. Only he can decide to save people or to destroy them. So you must not judge your friends. You do not have that authority.

Trust God every day

¹³ Some of you say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will stay there for a year. We will buy and sell things, and we will become rich.’ If you say things like that, listen to me. ¹⁴ You do not know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a cloud which appears for a short time and then it quickly goes away. ¹⁵ So what you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord agrees and we are still alive, then we will do this or that.’ ¹⁶ But instead, you talk about what you have decided to do. You speak as if you have the power to make it happen. It is wrong to speak like that.