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.
God’s Warning to His People
2 “Woe to those who are crafting iniquity,
planning evil well into the night![a]
When morning’s light comes,
they carry out their plans[b] because they have the power to do so.
2 They covet fields and seize them;
they covet[c] houses, and grab them, too.
They harass the valiant man, along with his household,
an individual and his estate.
3 “Therefore this is what the Lord says,
‘I’m crafting evil against this family,
from which you can’t escape.[d]
You won’t strut around arrogantly,
because the times are evil.’
4 “When this happens,[e] someone will compose a proverb about you, lamenting sorrowfully,
‘We are completely ruined!
He has given my people’s heritage to others.[f]
How he has removed it from me,
dividing up our fields!’
5 “This is why there will not be left even a single person
to settle boundary disputes[g] in the Lord’s community.
6 To those who speak out, they will declare,
‘Don’t prophesy to anyone!’
so their shame won’t go away.
7 “It is said, house of Jacob,
‘The Spirit of the Lord is limited,
if he acts this way, is he not?’
“But my words benefit those who live righteously, do they not?
8 Lately my people have acted like an enemy—
you strip travelers who thought they were[h] as secure
as those who return from war.
9 You have evicted the wives of my people from their dream homes;
you have removed my majesty from their children permanently.
10 “Get up and go,
because there’s no rest for you here!
Since everything[i] is polluted, it can only cause destruction,
even heavy destruction.
11 Suppose a man who keeps company with a deceiving spirit prophesies like this:
‘Drink wine and strong drink!’
Won’t the people accept him as a prophet?”
The Coming Judgment
12 “Jacob, how I will surely gather all of you!
How I will gather the survivors of Israel!
I will gather them together like sheep in a pen,[j]
like the flock in the midst of the sheepfold.
There will be a great commotion because of all[k] the people.
13 God will stand up and break through[l] in their presence.
Then they will pass through the gate, going out by it.
Their king will pass in front of them
with the Lord at their head.”
Signs of the End(A)
15 “So when you see the destructive desecration, mentioned by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place (let the reader take note),[a] 16 then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. 17 Anyone who’s on the housetop must not come down to get what is in his house, 18 and anyone who’s in the field must not turn back to get his coat.
19 “How terrible it will be for women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days! 20 Pray that it may not be in winter or on a Sabbath when you flee, 21 because at that time there will be great suffering,[b] the kind that hasn’t happened from the beginning of the world until now and certainly won’t ever happen again. 22 If those days hadn’t been shortened, no one[c] would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.
23 “At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look here! The Messiah!’[d] or ‘There he is!’,[e] don’t believe it, 24 because false messiahs[f] and false prophets will have arisen and will produce great signs and startling demonstrations so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 Remember, I’ve told you beforehand. 26 So if they say to you, ‘Look! He’s in the wilderness,’ don’t go out looking for him.[g] And if they say, ‘Look! He’s in the storeroom,’ don’t believe it, 27 because just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever there’s a corpse, there the vultures[h] will gather.
The Coming of the Son of Man(B)
29 “Now immediately after the troubles[i] of those days,
‘The sun will be darkened,
the moon will not reflect its light,
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the powers from the heavens will be disrupted.’[j]
30 Then the sign that is the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all ‘the tribes of the land[k] will mourn’[l] as they see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’[m] with power and great glory. 31 He’ll send out his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they’ll gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another.”
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