Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

70 Rescue me, O God! Lord, hurry to my aid! ^2-3 They are after my life and delight in hurting me. Confuse them! Shame them! Stop them! Don’t let them keep on mocking me! ⁴ But fill the followers of God with joy. Let those who love your salvation exclaim, “What a wonderful God he is!” ⁵ But I am in deep trouble. Rush to my aid, for only you can help and save me. O Lord, don’t delay.

3 Listen! This is your doom! It is spoken by the Lord against both Israel and Judah—against the entire family I brought from Egypt:

² “Of all the peoples of the earth, I have chosen you alone. That is why I must punish you the more for all your sins. ³ For how can we walk together with your sins between us?

⁴ “Would I be roaring as a lion unless I had a reason? The fact is, I am getting ready to destroy you. Even a young lion, when it growls, shows it is ready for its food. ⁵ A trap doesn’t snap shut unless it is stepped on; your punishment is well deserved. ⁶ The alarm has sounded—listen and fear! For I, the Lord, am sending disaster into your land.

⁷ “But always, first of all, I warn you through my prophets. This I now have done.”

⁸ The Lion has roared—tremble in fear. The Lord God has sounded your doom—I dare not refuse to proclaim it.

⁹ “Call together the Assyrian and Egyptian leaders, saying, ‘Take your seats now on the mountains of Samaria to witness the scandalous spectacle of all Israel’s crimes.’ ¹⁰ My people have forgotten what it means to do right,” says the Lord. “Their beautiful homes are full of the loot from their thefts and banditry. ¹¹ Therefore,” the Lord God says, “an enemy is coming! He is surrounding them and will shatter their forts and plunder those beautiful homes.”

¹² The Lord says, “A shepherd tried to rescue his sheep from a lion, but it was too late; he snatched from the lion’s mouth two legs and a piece of ear. So it will be when the Israelites in Samaria are finally rescued—all they will have left is half a chair and a tattered pillow.

¹³ The sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice speaking from the four horns of the golden altar that stands before the throne of God, ¹⁴ saying to the sixth angel, “Release the four mighty demons^[a] held bound at the great River Euphrates.” ¹⁵ They had been kept in readiness for that year and month and day and hour, and now they were turned loose to kill a third of all mankind. ¹⁶ They led an army of 200,000,000 warriors^[b]—I heard an announcement of how many there were.

^17-18 I saw their horses spread out before me in my vision; their riders wore fiery-red breastplates, though some were sky-blue and others yellow. The horses’ heads looked much like lions’, and smoke and fire and flaming sulphur billowed from their mouths, killing one-third of all mankind. ¹⁹ Their power of death was not only in their mouths, but in their tails as well, for their tails were similar to serpents’ heads that struck and bit with fatal wounds.

²⁰ But the men left alive after these plagues still refused to worship God! They would not renounce their demon-worship, nor their idols made of gold and silver, brass, stone, and wood—which neither see nor hear nor walk! ²¹ Neither did they change their mind and attitude about all their murders and witchcraft, their immorality and theft.