Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
115 Glorify your name, not ours, O Lord! Cause everyone to praise your loving-kindness and your truth. 2 Why let the nations say, “Their God is dead!”[a]
3 For he is in the heavens and does as he wishes. 4 Their gods are merely man-made things of silver and of gold. 5 They can’t talk or see, despite their eyes and mouths! 6 Nor can they hear, nor smell, 7 nor use their hands or feet, nor speak! 8 And those who make and worship them are just as foolish as their idols are.
9 O Israel, trust the Lord! He is your helper. He is your shield. 10 O priests of Aaron, trust the Lord! He is your helper; he is your shield. 11 All of you, his people, trust in him. He is your helper; he is your shield.
12 Jehovah is constantly thinking about us, and he will surely bless us. He will bless the people of Israel and the priests of Aaron, 13 and all, both great and small, who reverence him.
14 May the Lord richly bless both you and your children. 15 Yes, Jehovah who made heaven and earth will personally bless you! 16 The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to all mankind.
17 The dead cannot sing praises to Jehovah here on earth,[b] 18 but we can! We praise him forever! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
5 Finally I stood before the Lord in great embarrassment; then I fell to my knees and lifted my hands to the Lord, 6 and cried out, “O my God, I am ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you, for our sins are piled higher than our heads and our guilt is as boundless as the heavens. 7 Our whole history has been one of sin; that is why we and our kings and our priests were slain by the heathen kings—we were captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today. 8 But now we have been given a moment of peace, for you have permitted a few of us to return to Jerusalem from our exile. You have given us a moment of joy and new life in our slavery. 9 For we were slaves, but in your love and mercy you did not abandon us to slavery; instead, you caused the kings of Persia to be favorable to us. They have even given us their assistance in rebuilding the Temple of our God and in giving us Jerusalem as a walled city in Judah.
10 “And now, O God, what can we say after all of this? For once again we have abandoned you and broken your laws! 11 The prophets warned us that the land we would possess was totally defiled by the horrible practices of the people living there. From one end to the other it is filled with corruption. 12 You told us not to let our daughters marry their sons, and not to let our sons marry their daughters, and not to help those nations in any way. You warned us that only if we followed this rule could we become a prosperous nation and forever leave that prosperity to our children as an inheritance. 13 And now, even after our punishment in exile because of our wickedness (and we have been punished far less than we deserved), and even though you have let some of us return, 14 we have broken your commandments again and intermarried with people who do these awful things. Surely your anger will destroy us now until not even this little remnant escapes. 15 O Lord God of Israel, you are a just God; what hope can we have if you give us justice as we stand here before you in our wickedness?”
16 “In just a little while I will be gone, and you will see me no more; but just a little while after that, and you will see me again!”
17-18 “Whatever is he saying?” some of his disciples asked. “What is this about ‘going to the Father’? We don’t know what he means.”
19 Jesus realized they wanted to ask him so he said, “Are you asking yourselves what I mean? 20 The world will greatly rejoice over what is going to happen to me, and you will weep. But your weeping shall suddenly be turned to wonderful joy when you see me again.[a] 21 It will be the same joy as that of a woman in labor when her child is born—her anguish gives place to rapturous joy and the pain is forgotten. 22 You have sorrow now, but I will see you again and then you will rejoice; and no one can rob you of that joy. 23 At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything, for you can go directly to the Father and ask him, and he will give you what you ask for because you use my name. 24 You haven’t tried this before, but begin now.[b] Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and your cup of joy will overflow.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.