Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 79

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹ O God, the nations have come into [the land of Your people] Your inheritance; Your sacred temple have they defiled; they have made Jerusalem heaps of ruins.

² The dead bodies of Your servants they have given as food to the birds of the heavens, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth.

³ Their blood they have poured out like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.

⁴ [Because of such humiliation] we have become a taunt and reproach to our neighbors, a mocking and derision to those who are round about us.

⁵ How long, O Lord? Will You be angry forever? Shall Your jealousy [which cannot endure a divided allegiance] burn like fire?

⁶ Pour out Your wrath on the Gentile nations who do not acknowledge You, and upon the kingdoms that do not call on Your name.^(A)

⁷ For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling and his pasture.

⁸ O do not [earnestly] remember against us the iniquities and guilt of our forefathers! Let Your compassion and tender mercy speedily come to meet us, for we are brought very low.

⁹ Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name! Deliver us, forgive us, and purge away our sins for Your name’s sake.

¹⁰ Why should the Gentile nations say, Where is their God? Let vengeance for the blood of Your servants which is poured out be known among the nations in our sight [not delaying until some future generation].

¹¹ Let the groaning and sighing of the prisoner come before You; according to the greatness of Your power and Your arm spare those who are appointed to die!

¹² And return into the bosom of our neighbors sevenfold the taunts with which they have taunted and scoffed at You, O Lord!

¹³ Then we Your people, the sheep of Your pasture, will give You thanks forever; we will show forth and publish Your praise from generation to generation.

⁶ In that day, says the Lord, I will assemble the lame, and I will gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted.

⁷ And I will make the lame a remnant, and those who were cast off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forever.

⁸ And you, O tower of the flock, the hill and stronghold of the Daughter of Zion, unto you the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the Daughter of Jerusalem.

⁹ Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king among you? Has your counselor perished, that pains have taken you like a woman in labor?

¹⁰ Writhe in pain and labor to bring forth, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth; for now you shall go forth out of the city and you shall live in the open country. You shall go to Babylon; there you shall be rescued. There the Lord shall redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

¹¹ Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, Let her be profaned and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.

¹² But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither do they understand His plan, for He shall gather them as the sheaves to the threshing floor.

¹³ Arise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion! For I will make your horn iron and I will make your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples, and I will devote their gain to the Lord and their treasure to the Lord of all the earth.^(A)

18 Then I saw another angel descending from heaven, possessing great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his radiance and splendor.

² And he shouted with a mighty voice, She is fallen! Mighty Babylon is fallen! She has become a resort and dwelling place for demons, a dungeon haunted by every loathsome spirit, an abode for every filthy and detestable bird.

³ For all nations have drunk the wine of her passionate unchastity, and the rulers and leaders of the earth have joined with her in committing fornication (idolatry), and the businessmen of the earth have become rich with the wealth of her excessive luxury and wantonness.^(A)

⁴ I then heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out from her, my people, so that you may not share in her sins, neither participate in her plagues.^(B)

⁵ For her iniquities (her crimes and transgressions) are piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her wickedness and [her] crimes [and calls them up for settlement].^(C)

⁶ Repay to her what she herself has paid [to others] and double [her doom] in accordance with what she has done. Mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed [for others].^(D)

⁷ To the degree that she glorified herself and reveled in her wantonness [living deliciously and luxuriously], to that measure impose on her torment and anguish and tears and mourning. Since in her heart she boasts, I am not a widow; as a queen [on a throne] I sit, and I shall never see suffering or experience sorrow—^(E)

⁸ So shall her plagues (afflictions, calamities) come thick upon her in a single day, pestilence and anguish and sorrow and famine; and she shall be utterly consumed (burned up with fire), for mighty is the Lord God Who judges her.

⁹ And the rulers and leaders of the earth who joined her in her immorality (idolatry) and luxuriated with her will weep and beat their breasts and lament over her when they see the smoke of her conflagration.^(F)

¹⁰ They will stand a long way off, in terror of her torment, and they will cry, Woe and alas, the great city, the mighty city, Babylon! In one single hour how your doom (judgment) has overtaken you!