Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies

For the music director. Of David. To bring to remembrance.^[a]

⁶ “And I^[a] in turn gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places. Yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. ⁷ “And I also withheld the rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest. And I would send rain on one city and send no rain on another city. One tract of land will be rained on, and the tract of land on which it does not rain^[b] will dry up. ⁸ So two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water and they were not satisfied, yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. ⁹ “I struck you with blight and with mildew. Frequently the cutting locust devoured your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees, yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. ¹⁰ “I sent among you a plague in the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with the captivity of your horses. And I made the stench of your camps go up into your nostrils, yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. ¹¹ “I overthrew some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a stick snatched from the fire, and yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. ¹² “Therefore, thus I will do to you, O Israel. Because I will do this to you, O Israel, prepare to meet your God! ¹³ Yes, here is the one who forms the mountains, and the one who creates the wind, and the one who reveals to humans what his thoughts are, and the one who treads on the heights of the earth; Yahweh, the God of hosts, is his name!”

The Destruction of the Temple Predicted

24 And as Jesus went out of the temple courts^[a] he was going along, and his disciples came up to point out to him the buildings of the temple. ² But he answered and^[b] said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone will be left here on another stone that will not be thrown down!”

Signs of the End of the Age

³ And as^[c] he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came up to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” ⁴ And Jesus answered and^[d] said to them, “Watch out that no one deceives you! ⁵ For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will deceive many. ⁶ And you are going to hear about wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.^{[e] 8} But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.

Persecution of Disciples Predicted

⁹ “Then they will hand you over to persecution and will kill you, and you will be hated by all the nations^[f] because of my name. ¹⁰ And then many will be led into sin and will betray one another and will hate one another, ¹¹ and many false prophets will appear and will deceive many, ¹² and because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³ But the one who endures to the end—this person will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in the whole inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations,^[g] and then the end will come.