Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
For the Director of Music: According to “The Lilies”. A testimony of Asaph. A psalm.
A Prayer for Jerusalem
80 Shepherd of Israel, listen!
The one who leads Joseph like a flock,
the one enthroned on the cherubim,
display your glory.[a]
2 Reveal[b] your power before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh,
then come to our rescue.
3 God, restore us,
show your favor[c] and deliver us.
4 Lord God of the Heavenly Armies,
when will your smoldering anger[d]
toward your people’s prayers cease?[e]
5 You fed them tears as their food,
and caused them to drink a full measure of tears.
6 You have set us at strife against our neighbors
and our enemies deride us.
7 God of the Heavenly Armies, restore us
and show your favor,[f]
so we may be delivered.
17 May you support the man at your right hand;
the son of man whom you have raised for yourself.
18 Then we will not turn away from you.
Restore us, so we can call upon your name.
19 God of hosts, restore to us the light of your favor.[a]
Then we’ll be delivered.
The Lord Comes to the Mount of Olives
14 “Look! A day is coming for the Lord, when your plunder will be divided among you. 2 I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem, to lay siege against it. The city will be captured, the houses will be ransacked, the women raped, and half of the city will go into exile, but the remaining people will not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the Lord will go out to battle against those nations, waging war as in a day of battle. 4 His feet will stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. Then the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming[a] a very large valley, with half of the mountain moving toward the north and half toward the south. 5 You will run away through my mountain valley, because the valley of the mountains will extend as far as Azal. You will flee, as you fled from the earthquake during the reign of King Uzziah of Judah. And so the Lord my God will come, and all his holy ones will be accompanying you.”
A Unique Day
6 “At that time,[b] the daylight will be neither bright nor overcast. 7 It will be a unique day, known only to the Lord—neither daytime nor nighttime—and it will come about at twilight there will be light! 8 At that time,[c] flowing waters will run perennially[d] from Jerusalem, half toward the Dead[e] Sea and half to the Mediterranean[f] Sea. 9 The Lord will be king over all the earth at that time.[g] There[h] will be one Lord, and his name the only one.
Instructions on the Way Christians Should Live
4 Now then, brothers, you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, as in fact you are doing. We ask and encourage you in the Lord to do so even more. 2 You know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For it is God’s will that you be sanctified: You must abstain from sexual immorality. 4 Each of you must know how to control his own body[a] in a holy and honorable manner, 5 not with passion and lust like the gentiles who do not know God. 6 Furthermore, you must never take advantage of or exploit a brother in this regard, because the Lord avenges all these things, just as we already told you and warned you. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to be holy. 8 Therefore, whoever rejects this instruction[b] is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
9 Now you do not need anyone to write to you about brotherly love, since you have been taught by God to love each other. 10 In fact, you are showing love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia, but we urge you, brothers, to keep on doing this even more. 11 Also, make it your goal to live quietly, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may win the respect of outsiders, and have need of nothing.
Comfort about Christians who Have Died
13 But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve like other people who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring those who have died with him. 15 For we declare to you what the Lord has told us to say:[c] We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died. 16 With a shout of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of God’s trumpet, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead who belong to the Messiah[d] will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So then, encourage one another with these words.
Copyright © 1995-2014 by ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC.