Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Thanksgiving to God for His Justice[a]
9 I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will tell of all the wonderful things you have done.
2 I will sing with joy because of you.
I will sing praise to you, Almighty God.
3 My enemies turn back when you appear;
they fall down and die.
4 You are fair and honest in your judgments,
and you have judged in my favor.
5 You have condemned the heathen
and destroyed the wicked;
they will be remembered no more.
6 Our enemies are finished forever;
you have destroyed their cities,
and they are completely forgotten.
7 But the Lord is king forever;
he has set up his throne for judgment.
8 He rules the world with righteousness;
he judges the nations with justice.
9 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
a place of safety in times of trouble.
10 Those who know you, Lord, will trust you;
you do not abandon anyone who comes to you.
11 Sing praise to the Lord, who rules in Zion!
Tell every nation what he has done!
12 God remembers those who suffer;
he does not forget their cry,
and he punishes those who wrong them.
13 (A)Be merciful to me, O Lord!
See the sufferings my enemies cause me!
Rescue me from death, O Lord,
14 that I may stand before the people of Jerusalem
and tell them all the things for which I praise you.
I will rejoice because you saved me.
The Prophet's Vision of the Horses
7 In the second year that Darius was emperor, on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month (the month of Shebat), the Lord gave me a message in a vision at night. 8 (A)I saw someone riding a red horse. He had stopped among some myrtle trees in a valley, and behind him were other horses—red, dappled, and white. 9 I asked him, “Sir, what do these horses mean?”
He answered, “I will show you what they mean. 10 The Lord sent them to go and inspect the earth.”
11 They reported to the angel: “We have been all over the world and have found that the whole world lies helpless and subdued.”
12 Then the angel said, “Almighty Lord, you have been angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah for seventy years now. How much longer will it be before you show them mercy?”
13 The Lord answered the angel with comforting words, 14 and the angel told me to proclaim what the Lord Almighty had said: “I have a deep love and concern for Jerusalem, my holy city, 15 and I am very angry with the nations that enjoy quiet and peace. For while I was holding back my anger against my people, those nations made the sufferings of my people worse. 16 So I have come back to Jerusalem to show mercy to the city. My Temple will be restored, and the city will be rebuilt.”
17 The angel also told me to proclaim: “The Lord Almighty says that his cities will be prosperous again and that he will once again help Jerusalem and claim the city as his own.”
God's Judgment
2 (A)Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others and then do the same things which they do, you condemn yourself. 2 We know that God is right when he judges the people who do such things as these. 3 But you, my friend, do those very things for which you pass judgment on others! Do you think you will escape God's judgment? 4 (B)Or perhaps you despise his great kindness, tolerance, and patience. Surely you know that God is kind, because he is trying to lead you to repent. 5 But you have a hard and stubborn heart, and so you are making your own punishment even greater on the Day when God's anger and righteous judgments will be revealed. 6 (C)For God will reward each of us according to what we have done. 7 Some people keep on doing good, and seek glory, honor, and immortal life; to them God will give eternal life. 8 Other people are selfish and reject what is right, in order to follow what is wrong; on them God will pour out his anger and fury. 9 There will be suffering and pain for all those who do what is evil, for the Jews first and also for the Gentiles. 10 But God will give glory, honor, and peace to all who do what is good, to the Jews first and also to the Gentiles. 11 (D)For God judges everyone by the same standard.
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.