Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

For the Chief Musician, with the flutes. A Psalm by David.

¹⁸ “But even in those days,” says Yahweh, “I will not make a full end of you. ¹⁹ It will happen when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’

²⁰ “Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, ²¹ ‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding, who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear: ²² Don’t you fear me?’ says Yahweh; ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? Though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail. Though they roar, they still can’t pass over it.’

²³ “But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone. ²⁴ They don’t say in their heart, ‘Let’s now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season, who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’

²⁵ “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you. ²⁶ For wicked men are found among my people. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. ²⁷ As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich. ²⁸ They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

²⁹ “Shouldn’t I punish for these things?” says Yahweh. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

³⁰ “An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land. ³¹ The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

¹³ For this cause we also thank God without ceasing that when you received from us the word of the message of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, God’s word, which also works in you who believe. ¹⁴ For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews ¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men, ¹⁶ forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.

¹⁷ But we, brothers, being bereaved of you for a short season in presence, not in heart, tried even harder to see your face with great desire, ¹⁸ because we wanted to come to you—indeed, I, Paul, once and again—but Satan hindered us. ¹⁹ For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Isn’t it even you, before our Lord Jesus^[a] at his coming? ²⁰ For you are our glory and our joy.