Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

The special day of the Lord

¹⁸ You want the special day of the Lord to come. But it will be very bad for you! You think that God will punish your enemies on that day. But that day will not bring light to you, it will bring darkness. ¹⁹ Nobody will escape! It will be like a man who runs away from a lion, but then he meets a bear! When he goes into his house to be safe, he puts his hand on a wall and a snake bites him!

²⁰ Know this: The day of the Lord will be dark, not light. It will bring trouble, not joy.

²¹ The Lord says, ‘When you have your festivals, I hate them! When you meet to worship me, it does not make me happy! ²² When you bring burnt offerings and grain offerings to me, they do not please me. I will not accept your friendship offerings of fat animals. ²³ When you sing songs to worship me, I will not listen. They are just noise! I do not want to hear the music of your harps.

²⁴ What I do want to see is justice! I want to see that you always do what is right. Those good things should never stop, like a river that always runs with water.

David wrote this song for the music leader, to ask God to help him.

A prayer for help^[a]

Jesus' return

¹³ Our Christian friends, we want you to understand properly about your friends who have died.^[a] Then you will not continue to be sad about them. People who do not hope for any life after death are sad when their friends die. But you should not be upset like those other people. ¹⁴ We believe that Jesus died and he rose again after death. So we also believe that people who have died as Christians will rise again. When God brings Jesus back, he will take the Christians to go with Jesus.

¹⁵ We are telling you the message that the Lord has given to us. This is what will happen when the Lord returns. Those of us who are still alive will not go to meet the Lord first. We will not go before those people who have already died. ¹⁶ On that day, the Lord himself will come down from heaven. He will shout with authority. People will hear the voice of the leader of God's angels. They will hear the sound of God's trumpet. Then those people who have died as Christians will become alive again. They will be the first people to rise up. ¹⁷ After that, those of us who are still alive will join together with them. God will suddenly take us up into the clouds. In that way, we will all meet the Lord in the sky. So we will all be with the Lord for ever. ¹⁸ Because this message is true, tell it to each other. Help one another to be strong, not sad.

Jesus tells a story about ten young women

25 Jesus said, ‘I will tell you another story to show what the kingdom of heaven is like. There were ten young women who were going to a marriage party. They took their lamps with them and they went to meet the man who was marrying a wife. ² Five of these young women were silly. The other five young women were wise. ³ The silly women took their lamps with them, but they did not take any extra oil with them. ⁴ The five wise women took jars of oil with their lamps. ⁵ The man who was marrying a wife did not come for a long time. So all the young women became tired, and they went to sleep.

⁶ In the middle of the night, someone shouted out, “The man is coming! Come out to meet him!”

⁷ The ten young women woke up. Then they prepared their lamps to make them work well. ⁸ The five silly young women said to the other five young women, “Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are not giving much light.” ⁹ The wise women replied, “If we did that, then there would not be enough oil for all of us. You must go instead to the people who sell oil. You must buy some oil for yourselves.”

¹⁰ So these five women went to buy some oil. While they were away, the man arrived for the marriage party. The five wise women were ready. They went with him into the house for the party. Then the servants shut the door.

¹¹ Later, the five silly women also came to the house. They said, “Sir, Sir, please open the door for us.” ¹² But he replied, “I tell you, I do not know you.” ’

¹³ Then Jesus said to the people, ‘So you must watch carefully. You do not know on what day or at what time I will return.’^[a]