Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
To the Music director. Davidic. As a memorial.
A Call for Help
70 God, come to my rescue.
Lord, hurry to help me.
2 May those who seek to kill me be publicly humiliated.
May those who take pleasure in my harm
be turned back in humiliation.
3 May those who say “Aha! Aha!”
be turned back because of their shameful deeds.[a]
4 Let those who seek you greatly rejoice in you.
Let those who love your deliverance say,
“May God be continuously exalted.”
5 As for me, I am poor and needy.
God, come quickly to me.
You are my helper and my deliverer.
Lord, please do not delay.
A Higher Standard of Accountability
3 “Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken about you, people of Israel. It concerns the entire family that I brought from the land of Egypt:
2 ‘You alone have I known from among all of the families of mankind;
therefore I will hold you accountable for all your iniquities.’”
Seven Questions to Ponder
3 “Will a couple walk in unity
without having met?
4 Will a lion roar in the forest
without having found its prey?
Will a young lion cry from its den
without having caught anything?
5 Does a bird fall into a snare on the ground
without any bait in the trap?
Will a trap snap shut
when there is nothing to catch?
6 And when an alarm[a] sounds in the city,
the people will tremble, won’t they?
If there is trouble in a city,
the Lord has brought it about, has he not?”
The Lord’s Purposes
7 “Truly the Lord God will do nothing he has mentioned
without revealing his purposes to his servants the prophets.
8 A lion has roared!
Who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken!
Who will not prophesy?
9 Announce this[b] in the fortified citadels of Ashdod,
and in the fortified citadels of the land of Egypt.
Tell them, ‘Gather together on the mountains of Samaria;
look at the great misery among the citadels,[c]
along with the oppression within Egypt.’[d]
10 Because they do not know how to act right,”
declares the Lord,
“they are filling their strongholds with treasures
that they took from others by violence into their fortified citadels.”
11 Therefore this is what the Lord God says:
“An enemy will surround the land.
He[e] will pull down your defenses,
and plunder your fortified citadels.”
12 This is what the Lord says:
“Just as a shepherd might save from the lion’s mouth
only two leg bones or a scrap of an ear,
the Israelis will be saved in a similar manner—
those in Samaria who sit on the remains of their broken beds,[f]
and those in Damascus who lie on the edge of their couches.”
The Vision of the Sixth Trumpet
13 When the sixth angel blew his trumpet, I heard a voice from the four[a] horns of the gold altar in front of God. 14 It told the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are held at the great Euphrates River.” 15 So the four angels who were ready for that hour, day, month, and year were released to kill one-third of humanity. 16 The number of cavalry troops was 200,000,000. I heard how many there were.[b]
17 This was how I saw the horses in my vision: The riders wore breastplates that had the color of fire, sapphire, and sulfur. The heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire, smoke, and sulfur came out of their mouths. 18 By these three plagues—the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur that came out of their mouths—one-third of humanity was killed. 19 For the power of these horses is in their mouths and their tails. Their tails have heads like snakes, which they use to inflict pain.
20 The rest of the people who survived these plagues did not repent from their evil actions[c] or stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. 21 They did not repent from their murders, their witchcraft, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.
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