Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁵ Happy (blessed, fortunate, enviable) is he who has the God of [special revelation to] Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God,^(A)

⁶ Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, Who keeps truth and is faithful forever,

⁷ Who executes justice for the oppressed, Who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets free the prisoners,

⁸ The Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the [uncompromisingly] righteous (those upright in heart and in right standing with Him).^(B)

⁹ The Lord protects and preserves the strangers and temporary residents, He upholds the fatherless and the widow and sets them upright, but the way of the wicked He makes crooked (turns upside down and brings to ruin).

¹⁰ The Lord shall reign forever, even Your God, O Zion, from generation to generation. Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)^(C)

⁶ Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in Moab how the Lord had visited His people in giving them food.

⁷ So she left the place where she was, her two daughters-in-law with her, and they started on the way back to Judah.

⁸ But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

⁹ The Lord grant that you may find a home and rest, each in the house of her husband! Then she kissed them and they wept aloud.

¹⁰ And they said to her, No, we will return with you to your people.

¹¹ But Naomi said, Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that may become your husbands?

¹² Turn back, my daughters, go; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband tonight and should bear sons,

¹³ Would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; it is far more bitter for me than for you that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me.

¹⁴ Then they wept aloud again; and Orpah ^[a]kissed her mother-in-law [good-bye], but Ruth clung to her.

¹⁵ And Naomi said, See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.

¹⁶ And Ruth said, Urge me not to leave you or to turn back from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. ^[b]Your people shall be my people and your God my God.

¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts me from you.

¹⁸ When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said no more.

3 Beloved, I am now writing you this second letter. In [both of] them I have stirred up your unsullied (sincere) mind by way of remembrance,

² That you should recall the predictions of the holy (consecrated, dedicated) prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior [given] through your apostles (His special messengers).

³ To begin with, you must know and understand this, that scoffers (mockers) will come in the last days with scoffing, [people who] walk after their own fleshly desires

⁴ And say, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the forefathers fell asleep, all things have continued exactly as they did from the beginning of creation.

⁵ For they willfully overlook and forget this [fact], that the heavens [came into] existence long ago by the word of God, and the earth also which was formed out of water and by means of water,

⁶ Through which the world that then [existed] was deluged with water and perished.^(A)

⁷ But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been stored up (reserved) for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly people.

⁸ Nevertheless, do not let this one fact escape you, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.^(B)

⁹ The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.

¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will vanish (pass away) with a thunderous crash, and the [^[a]material] elements [of the universe] will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.