Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Song of Praise and Thanksgiving[a]
66 Praise God with shouts of joy, all people!
2 Sing to the glory of his name;
offer him glorious praise!
3 Say to God, “How wonderful are the things you do!
Your power is so great
that your enemies bow down in fear before you.
4 Everyone on earth worships you;
they sing praises to you,
they sing praises to your name.”
5 Come and see what God has done,
his wonderful acts among people.
6 (A)He changed the sea into dry land;
our ancestors crossed the river on foot.
There we rejoiced because of what he did.
7 He rules forever by his might
and keeps his eyes on the nations.
Let no rebels rise against him.
8 Praise our God, all nations;
let your praise be heard.
9 He has kept us alive
and has not allowed us to fall.
King Manasseh of Judah(A)
21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for fifty-five years. His mother was Hephzibah. 2 (B)Following the disgusting practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out of the land as his people advanced, Manasseh sinned against the Lord. 3 He rebuilt the pagan places of worship that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he built altars for the worship of Baal and made an image of the goddess Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done. Manasseh also worshiped the stars. 4 (C)He built pagan altars in the Temple, the place that the Lord had said was where he should be worshiped. 5 In the two courtyards of the Temple he built altars for the worship of the stars. 6 He sacrificed his son as a burnt offering. He practiced divination and magic and consulted[a] fortunetellers and mediums. He sinned greatly against the Lord and stirred up his anger. 7 (D)He placed the symbol of the goddess Asherah in the Temple, the place about which the Lord had said to David and his son Solomon: “Here in Jerusalem, in this Temple, is the place that I have chosen out of all the territory of the twelve tribes of Israel as the place where I am to be worshiped. 8 And if the people of Israel will obey all my commands and keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them, then I will not allow them to be driven out of the land that I gave to their ancestors.” 9 But the people of Judah did not obey the Lord, and Manasseh led them to commit even greater sins than those committed by the nations whom the Lord had driven out of the land as his people advanced.
10 Through his servants the prophets the Lord said, 11 “King Manasseh has done these disgusting things, things far worse than what the Canaanites did; and with his idols he has led the people of Judah into sin. 12 So I, the Lord God of Israel, will bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that everyone who hears about it will be stunned. 13 I will punish Jerusalem as I did Samaria, as I did King Ahab of Israel and his descendants. I will wipe Jerusalem clean of its people, as clean as a plate that has been wiped and turned upside down. 14 I will abandon the people who survive, and will hand them over to their enemies, who will conquer them and plunder their land. 15 I will do this to my people because they have sinned against me and have stirred up my anger from the time their ancestors came out of Egypt to this day.”
The Conflict in Us
14 We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a mortal, sold as a slave to sin. 15 (A)I do not understand what I do; for I don't do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate. 16 Since what I do is what I don't want to do, this shows that I agree that the Law is right. 17 So I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me. 18 I know that good does not live in me—that is, in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. 19 I don't do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do. 20 If I do what I don't want to do, this means that I am no longer the one who does it; instead, it is the sin that lives in me.
21 So I find that this law is at work: when I want to do what is good, what is evil is the only choice I have. 22 My inner being delights in the law of God. 23 But I see a different law at work in my body—a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. 24 What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ!
This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God's law only with my mind, while my human nature serves the law of sin.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.