Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁽¹⁾ Adonai, you have been our dwelling place
in every generation.
² Before the mountains were born,
before you had formed the earth and the world,
from eternity past to eternity future
you are God.

³ You bring frail mortals to the point of being crushed,
then say, “People, repent!”
⁴ For from your viewpoint a thousand years
are merely like yesterday or a night watch.
⁵ When you sweep them away, they become like sleep;
by morning they are like growing grass,
⁶ growing and flowering in the morning,
but by evening cut down and dried up.

⁷ For we are destroyed by your anger,
overwhelmed by your wrath.
⁸ You have placed our faults before you,
our secret sins in the full light of your presence.

⁹ All our days ebb away under your wrath;
our years die away like a sigh.
¹⁰ The span of our life is seventy years,
or if we are strong, eighty;
yet at best it is toil and sorrow,
over in a moment, and then we are gone.

¹¹ Who grasps the power of your anger and wrath
to the degree that the fear due you should inspire?

¹⁰ “‘Here is the day! Here it comes!
Doom has gone out, the rod has blossomed,
arrogance has budded. ¹¹ Violence has grown
into a rod of wickedness.
Nothing is left of them,
nothing of their crowds,
nothing of their wealth —
there is nothing of importance in them.
¹² The time has come, the day has arrived;
let neither buyer rejoice nor seller regret;
for wrath is coming to all her many people.
¹³ For the seller will not return to what he sold,
even if he is still alive;
for though the vision was brought to all her many people,
nobody repented.
Each kept living his own wicked life;
they weren’t strong enough [to repent].
¹⁴ The shofar has sounded, everything is ready,
but no one goes out to the battle,
for my wrath is coming to all her many people.

¹⁵ “‘Outside is the sword, inside plague and famine.
Those in the country will die by the sword.
And as for those in the city,
plague and famine will eat them up.
¹⁶ But if any of them manage to escape,
they will head for the mountains
like doves from the valleys,
all of them moaning, each for his sin.
¹⁷ All hands will droop, all knees turn to water.
¹⁸ They will put on sackcloth;
horror will cover them;
every face will be ashamed,
every head shaved bald.
¹⁹ They will throw their silver into the streets;
their gold will be like something unclean.
On the day of Adonai’s wrath their silver and gold
won’t be able to rescue them.
These things won’t satisfy their hunger,
these things won’t fill their stomachs,
because these are what caused them to sin.
²⁰ From their beautiful jewellery,
in which they took such pride,
they made their abominable idols
and their other detestable things;
therefore, for them I have caused it
to be like something unclean.
²¹ I will hand it over to foreigners as booty,
to the wicked of the earth as spoil,
and they will profane it.
²² I will turn my face away from them;
then [Bavel] will profane my secret place,
robbers will enter and profane it.

²³ “‘Forge a chain,
for the land is full of capital crimes
and the city full of violence.
²⁴ Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations
to take possession of their homes;
I will end the arrogance of the strong;
and their holy places will be profaned.
²⁵ When horror comes, they will seek peace;
but there will be none.
²⁶ Calamity will follow calamity,
rumor will follow rumor;
they will seek a vision from the prophet,
but Torah will perish from the cohen
and advice from the leaders.
²⁷ The king will go into mourning,
the prince will be clothed with fright,
and the hands of the people of the land
will tremble in terror.
I will treat them as their way of life deserves
and judge them as they have judged others.
Then they will know
that I am Adonai.’”