Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 43

¹ Judge and vindicate me, O God; plead and defend my cause against an ungodly nation. O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!

² For You are the God of my strength [my Stronghold—in Whom I take refuge]; why have You cast me off? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

³ O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your dwelling.

⁴ Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy; yes, with the lyre will I praise You, O God, my God!

⁵ Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the help of my [sad] countenance, and my God.

13 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

² Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy out of their own mind and heart, Hear the word of the Lord!

³ Thus says the Lord God: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit [and things they have not seen] and have seen nothing!

⁴ O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among ruins and in waste places.

⁵ You have not gone up into the gaps or breeches, nor built up the wall for the house of Israel that it might stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.

⁶ They have seen falsehood and lying divination, saying, The Lord says; but the Lord has not sent them. Yet they have hoped and made men to hope for the confirmation of their word.

⁷ Have you not seen a false vision and have you not spoken a lying divination when you say, The Lord says, although I have not spoken?

⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have spoken empty, false, and delusive words and have seen lies, therefore behold, I am against you, says the Lord God.

⁹ And My hand shall be against the prophets who see empty, false, and delusive visions and who give lying prophecies. They shall not be in the secret council of My people, nor shall they be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter into the land of Israel; and you shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord God.

¹⁰ Because, even because they have seduced My people, saying, Peace, when there is no peace, and because when one builds a [flimsy] wall, behold, [these prophets] daub it over with whitewash,

¹¹ Say to them who daub it with whitewash that it shall fall! There shall be a downpour of rain; and you, O great hailstones, shall fall, and a violent wind shall tear apart [the whitewashed, flimsy wall].

¹² Behold, when the wall is fallen, will you not be asked, Where is the coating with which you [prophets] daubed it?

¹³ Therefore thus says the Lord God: I will even rend it with a stormy wind in My wrath, and there shall be an overwhelming rain in My anger and great hailstones in wrath to destroy [that wall].

¹⁴ So will I break down the wall that you have daubed with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundations will be exposed; when it falls, you will perish and be consumed in the midst of it. And you will know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord.

¹⁵ Thus will I accomplish My wrath upon the wall and upon those who have daubed it with whitewash, and I will say to you, The wall is no more, neither are they who daubed it,

¹⁶ The [false] prophets of Israel who prophesied deceitfully about Jerusalem, seeing visions of peace for her when there is no peace, says the Lord God.

2 But also [in those days] there arose false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among yourselves, who will subtly and stealthily introduce heretical doctrines (destructive heresies), even denying and disowning the Master Who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

² And many will follow their immoral ways and lascivious doings; because of them the true Way will be maligned and defamed.

³ And in their covetousness (lust, greed) they will exploit you with false (cunning) arguments. From of old the sentence [of condemnation] for them has not been idle; their destruction (eternal misery) has not been asleep.