Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
BOOK FOUR(A)
Of God and Human Beings[a]
90 O Lord, you have always been our home.
2 Before you created the hills
or brought the world into being,
you were eternally God,
and will be God forever.
3 You tell us to return to what we were;
you change us back to dust.
4 (B)A thousand years to you are like one day;
they are like yesterday, already gone,
like a short hour in the night.
5 You carry us away like a flood;
we last no longer than a dream.
We are like weeds that sprout in the morning,
6 that grow and burst into bloom,
then dry up and die in the evening.
7 We are destroyed by your anger;
we are terrified by your fury.
8 You place our sins before you,
our secret sins where you can see them.
9 Our life is cut short by your anger;
it fades away like a whisper.
10 (A)Seventy years is all we have—
eighty years, if we are strong;
yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow;
life is soon over, and we are gone.
11 Who has felt the full power of your anger?
Who knows what fear your fury can bring?
12 Teach us how short our life is,
so that we may become wise.
10 The day of disaster is coming. Violence is flourishing. Pride is at its height.[a] 11 Violence produces more wickedness. Nothing of theirs will remain, nothing of their wealth, their splendor, or their glory.
12 The time is coming. The day is near when buying and selling will have no more meaning, because God's punishment will fall on everyone alike. 13 No merchants will live long enough to get back what they have lost, because God's anger is on everyone. Those who are evil cannot survive.[b] 14 The trumpet blows, and everyone gets ready. But no one goes off to war, for God's anger will fall on everyone alike.
Punishment for Israel's Sins
15 There is fighting in the streets, and sickness and hunger in the houses. Anyone who is out in the country will die in the fighting, and anyone in the city will be a victim of sickness and hunger. 16 Some will escape to the mountains like doves frightened from the valleys. All of them will moan over their sins.[c] 17 Everyone's hands will be weak, and their knees will shake. 18 They will put on sackcloth and they will tremble all over. Their heads will be shaved, and they will all be disgraced. 19 They will throw their gold and silver away in the streets like garbage, because neither silver nor gold can save them when the Lord pours out his fury. They cannot use it to satisfy their desires or fill their stomachs. Gold and silver led them into sin. 20 Once they were proud of their beautiful jewels, but they used them to make disgusting idols. That is why the Lord has made their wealth repulsive to them.
21 “I will let foreigners rob them,” says the Lord, “and lawbreakers will take all their wealth and defile it. 22 I will not interfere when my treasured Temple is profaned, when robbers break into it and defile it.
23 “Everything is in confusion[d]—the land is full of murders and the cities are full of violence. 24 I will bring the most evil nations here and let them have your homes. Your strongest men will lose their confidence when I let the nations profane the places where you worship. 25 Despair is coming. You will look for peace and never find it. 26 One disaster will follow another, and a steady stream of bad news will pour in. You will beg the prophets to reveal what they foresee. The priests will have nothing to teach the people, and the elders will have no advice to give. 27 The king will mourn, the prince will give up hope, and the people will shake with fear. I will punish you for all you have done, and will judge you in the same way as you have judged others. This will show you that I am the Lord.”
The Return of the Evil Spirit(A)
43 “When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest. If it can't find one, 44 it says to itself, ‘I will go back to my house.’ So it goes back and finds the house empty, clean, and all fixed up. 45 Then it goes out and brings along seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there. So when it is all over, that person is in worse shape than at the beginning. This is what will happen to the evil people of this day.”
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.