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.

6 Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem! And blow the trumpet in Tekoa [a town far south in Judah], and raise a [fire] signal over Beth-haccherem [a town near Jerusalem]! For evil is looking forth with eagerness from the north, and great destruction.

² The comely and delicate one, [Jerusalem] the Daughter of Zion, I will destroy. [To a pasturage, yes, a luxurious pasturage, have I likened her.]

³ Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her; they shall pitch their tents round about her; they shall pasture, each one in his place [eating up all her luxurious herbage on every side].

⁴ Prepare yourselves for war against her [they cry]; up, let us attack her at noon! But alas, the day declines, the evening shadows lengthen.

⁵ Arise, let us go by night and destroy her palaces!

⁶ For the Lord of hosts has said, Hew down her trees and cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem. This is the city which must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her.

⁷ As a fountain wells up and casts forth its waters and keeps them fresh, so she is [continually] casting forth [fresh] wickedness. Violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are continually before Me.

⁸ Be corrected, reformed, instructed, and warned, O Jerusalem, lest I be alienated and parted from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.

⁹ Thus says the Lord of hosts: They shall thoroughly glean as a vine what is left of Israel; turn back your hand again and again [O minister of destruction] into the baskets, like a grape gatherer, and strip the tendrils [of the vine].

¹⁰ To whom shall I [Jeremiah] speak and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised [never brought into covenant with God or consecrated to His service], and they cannot hear or obey. Behold, the word of the Lord has become to them a reproach and the object of their scorn; they have no delight in it.

⁴⁰ Listening to those words, some of the multitude said, This is certainly and beyond doubt the Prophet!^(A)

⁴¹ Others said, This is the Christ (the Messiah, Anointed One)! But some said, What? Does the Christ come out of Galilee?

⁴² Does not the Scripture tell us that the Christ will come from the offspring of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?^(B)

⁴³ So there arose a division and dissension among the people concerning Him.

⁴⁴ Some of them wanted to arrest Him, but no one [ventured and] laid hands on Him.

⁴⁵ Meanwhile the attendants (guards) had gone back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, Why have you not brought Him here with you?

⁴⁶ The attendants replied, Never has a man talked as this Man talks! [No mere man has ever spoken as He speaks!]

⁴⁷ The Pharisees said to them, Are you also deluded and led astray? [Are you also swept off your feet?]

⁴⁸ Has any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in Him?

⁴⁹ As for this multitude (rabble) that does not know the Law, they are contemptible and doomed and accursed!

⁵⁰ Then Nicodemus, who came to Jesus before at night and was one of them, asked,

⁵¹ Does our Law convict a man without giving him a hearing and finding out what he has done?

⁵² They answered him, Are you too from Galilee? Search [the Scriptures yourself], and you will see that no prophet comes (will rise to prominence) from Galilee.