Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Prayer of Humble Trust[a]
131 Lord, I have given up my pride
and turned away from my arrogance.
I am not concerned with great matters
or with subjects too difficult for me.
2 Instead, I am content and at peace.
As a child lies quietly in its mother's arms,
so my heart is quiet within me.
3 Israel, trust in the Lord
now and forever!
10 Then Hananiah took the yoke off my neck, broke it in pieces, 11 and said in the presence of all the people, “The Lord has said that this is how he will break the yoke that King Nebuchadnezzar has put on the neck of all the nations; and he will do this within two years.” Then I left.
12 Some time after this the Lord told me 13 to go and tell Hananiah: “The Lord has said that you may be able to break a wooden yoke, but he[a] will replace it with an iron yoke. 14 The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, has said that he will put an iron yoke on all these nations and that they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. The Lord has said that he will make even the wild animals serve Nebuchadnezzar.”
15 Then I told Hananiah this, and added, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you, and you are making these people believe a lie. 16 And so the Lord himself says that he is going to get rid of you. Before this year is over you will die because you have told the people to rebel against the Lord.”
17 And Hananiah died in the seventh month of that same year.
3 Do the Jews then have any advantage over the Gentiles? Or is there any value in being circumcised? 2 Much, indeed, in every way! In the first place, God trusted his message to the Jews. 3 But what if some of them were not faithful? Does this mean that God will not be faithful? 4 (A)Certainly not! God must be true, even though all human beings are liars. As the scripture says,
“You must be shown to be right when you speak;
you must win your case when you are being tried.”
5 But what if our doing wrong serves to show up more clearly God's doing right? Can we say that God does wrong when he punishes us? (This would be the natural question to ask.) 6 By no means! If God is not just, how can he judge the world?
7 But what if my untruth serves God's glory by making his truth stand out more clearly? Why should I still be condemned as a sinner? 8 Why not say, then, “Let us do evil so that good may come”? Some people, indeed, have insulted me by accusing me of saying this very thing! They will be condemned, as they should be.
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.