Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
7 Restore us again, O God of hosts; and cause Your face to shine [upon us with favor as of old], and we shall be saved!
8 You brought a vine [Israel] out of Egypt; You drove out the [heathen] nations and planted it [in Canaan].
9 You prepared room before it, and it took deep root and it filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs of it were like the great cedars [cedars of God].
11 [Israel] sent out its boughs to the [Mediterranean] Sea and its branches to the [Euphrates] River.(A)
12 Why have You broken down its hedges and walls so that all who pass by pluck from its fruit?
13 The boar out of the wood wastes it and the wild beast of the field feeds on it.
14 Turn again, we beseech You, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven and see, visit, and have regard for this vine!
15 [Protect and maintain] the stock which Your right hand planted, and the branch (the son) that You have reared and made strong for Yourself.
14 Is Israel a servant? Is he a homeborn slave? Why has he become a captive and a prey?
15 The young lions have roared over him and made their voices heard. And they have made his land a waste; his cities are burned ruins without inhabitant.
16 Moreover, the children of Memphis and Tahpanhes (Egypt) [have in times past shown their power as a foe; they] have broken and fed on the crown of your head [Israel]—so do not rely on them as an ally now.
17 Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way?
18 And now what have you to gain by allying yourself with Egypt and going her way, to drink the [black and roiled] waters of the Nile? Or what have you to gain in going the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19 Your own wickedness shall chasten and correct you, and your backslidings and desertion of faith shall reprove you. Know therefore and recognize that this is an evil and bitter thing: [first,] you have forsaken the Lord your God; [second,] you are indifferent to Me and the fear of Me is not in you, says the Lord of hosts.
20 For long ago [in Egypt] I broke your yoke and burst your bonds [not that you might be free, but that you might serve Me] [a]and long ago you shattered the yoke and snapped the bonds [of My law which I put upon you]; you said, I will not serve and obey You! For upon every high hill and under every green tree you [eagerly] prostrated yourself [in idolatrous worship], playing the harlot.
21 Yet I had planted you [O house of Israel] a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned into degenerate shoots of wild vine alien to Me?
22 For though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, yet your iniquity and guilt are still [upon you; you are] spotted, dirty, and stained before Me, says the Lord.
16 Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath.
17 Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, and they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ.
18 Let no one defraud you by acting as an umpire and declaring you unworthy and disqualifying you for the prize, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions [he claims] he has seen, vainly puffed up by his sensuous notions and inflated by his unspiritual thoughts and fleshly conceit,
19 And not holding fast to the Head, from Whom the entire body, supplied and knit together by means of its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20 If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world’s crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules and regulations?—such as]
21 Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them],
22 Referring to things all of which perish with being used. To do this is to follow human precepts and doctrines.(A)
23 Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]
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