Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A song of David written when he was in the desert of Judah.
63 God, you are my God.
I am searching so hard to find you.
Body and soul, I thirst for you
in this dry and weary land without water.
2 Yes, I have seen you in your Temple.[a]
I have seen your strength and glory.
3 Your faithful love is better than life,
so my lips praise you.
4 By my life, I will praise you.
In your name, I lift my hands in prayer.
5 When I sit down to satisfy my hunger,
my joyful lips hunger to praise you!
6 I remember you while lying on my bed.
I think about you in the middle of the night.
7 That is because you are the one who helps me.
It makes me happy to be under your protection!
8 I stay close to you,
and you hold me with your powerful arm.
9 Those who are trying to kill me will be destroyed.
They will go down to their graves.
10 They will be killed with swords.
Wild dogs will eat their dead bodies.
11 But the king will be happy with his God,
and those who promised to obey him will praise him when he defeats those liars.
7 The Lord made a promise. He used his name, “Pride of Jacob,” and made this promise:
“I will never forget what those people did.
8 There will be an earthquake
that will shake the whole land because of what they did.
Everyone living there will cry for those who died.
The land will be tossed around.
The whole land will rise and fall like the Nile River in Egypt.”
9 The Lord God also said,
“At that time I will make the sun set at noon
and make the land dark on a clear day.
10 I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead.
All your songs will be songs of sadness for those who are dead.
I will put mourning clothes on every body
and baldness on every head.[a]
I will cause mourning everywhere,
like that for an only son who has died.
It will be a very bitter end.”
A Famine of God’s Word
11 The Lord God says,
“Look, the days are coming
when I will cause a famine in the land.
The people will not be hungry for bread.
They will not be thirsty for water.
No, they will be hungry for words from the Lord.
12 The people will wander around the country,
from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean Sea,
and from the north part of the country to the east.
They will go back and forth looking for a message from the Lord,
but they will not find it.
13 At that time the beautiful young men and women
will become weak from thirst.
14 They made promises by the sin of Samaria,[b]
They said, ‘Dan,[c] as surely as your god lives, we promise ….’
And they said, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba[d] lives, we promise ….’
But they will fall
and never get up again.”
20 Brothers and sisters, don’t think like children. In evil things be like babies, but in your thinking you should be like full-grown adults. 21 As the Scriptures[a] say,
“Using those who speak a different language
and using the lips of foreigners,
I will speak to these people.
But even then, they will not obey me.” (A)
This is what the Lord says.
22 And from this we see that the use of different languages shows how God deals with those who don’t believe, not with those who believe. And prophecy shows how God works through those who believe, not through unbelievers. 23 Suppose the whole church meets together and you all speak in different languages. If some people come in who are without understanding or don’t believe, they will say you are crazy. 24 But suppose you are all prophesying and someone comes in who does not believe or who is without understanding. Their sin will be shown to them, and they will be judged by everything you say. 25 The secret things in their heart will be made known. So they will bow down and worship God. They will say, “Without a doubt, God is here with you.”[b]
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International