Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

To the director: A song of David.

Visions About the Nations Around Judah

12 This is a message from the Lord about Israel. The Lord is the one who made the earth and the sky, and he put the human spirit in people. And this is what the Lord said: ² “Look, I will make Jerusalem like a cup of poison to the nations around her. The nations will come and attack that city, and all of Judah will be caught in the trap. ³ But I will make Jerusalem like a heavy rock—those who try to take it will hurt themselves. They will be cut and scratched. All the nations on earth will come together to fight against Jerusalem. ⁴ But at that time I will scare the horse, and the soldier riding it will panic. I will make all the enemy horses blind, but my eyes will be open—and I will be watching over Judah’s family. ⁵ The leaders of Judah will encourage the people and say, ‘The Lord All-Powerful is your God. He makes us strong.’ ⁶ At that time I will make the leaders of Judah like a fire burning in a forest. They will destroy their enemies like fire burning straw. They will destroy the enemy all around them, and the people in Jerusalem will again be able to sit back and relax.”

⁷ The Lord will save the people of Judah first, so the people in Jerusalem will not be able to brag too much. David’s family and the other people who live in Jerusalem will not be able to brag that they are better than the other people in Judah. ⁸ But the Lord will protect the people in Jerusalem. Even the man who trips and falls will become a great soldier like David. And the men from David’s family will be like gods—like the Lord’s own angel leading the people.

⁹ The Lord says, “At that time I will destroy the nations that came to fight against Jerusalem. ¹⁰ I will fill David’s family and the people living in Jerusalem with a spirit of kindness and mercy. They will look to me, the one they stabbed, and they will be very sad. They will be as sad as someone crying over the death of their only son, as sad as someone crying over the death of their firstborn son. ¹¹ There will be a time of great sadness and crying in Jerusalem. It will be like the time people cry over the death of Hadad Rimmon^[a] in Megiddo Valley. ¹² Each and every family will cry by itself. The men in David’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. The men in Nathan’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. ¹³ The men in Levi’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. The men in Simeon’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. ¹⁴ And the same thing will happen in all the other tribes. The men and women will cry by themselves.”

13 But at that time a new spring of water will be opened for David’s family and for the other people living in Jerusalem. That fountain will be to wash away their sins and to make the people pure.

⁹ “You must be careful! There are people who will arrest you and take you to be judged for being my followers. They will beat you in their synagogues. You will be forced to stand before kings and governors. You will tell them about me. ¹⁰ Before the end comes, the Good News must be told to all nations. ¹¹ Even when you are arrested and put on trial, don’t worry about what you will say. Say whatever God tells you at the time. It will not really be you speaking. It will be the Holy Spirit.

¹² “Brothers will turn against their own brothers and hand them over to be killed. Fathers will hand over their own children to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and have them killed. ¹³ All people will hate you because you follow me. But those who remain faithful to the end will be saved.

¹⁴ “You will see ‘the terrible thing that causes destruction.’^[a] You will see this thing standing in the place where it should not be.” (Reader, I trust you understand what this means.) “Everyone in Judea at that time should run away to the mountains. ¹⁵ They should run away without wasting time to stop for anything. If someone is on the roof of their house, they must not go down to take things out of the house. ¹⁶ If someone is in the field, they must not go back to get a coat.

¹⁷ “During that time it will be hard for women who are pregnant or have small babies. ¹⁸ Pray that these things will not happen in winter, ¹⁹ because those days will be full of trouble. There will be more trouble than has ever happened since the beginning, when God made the world. And nothing that bad will ever happen again. ²⁰ But the Lord has decided to make that terrible time short. If it were not made short, no one could survive. But the Lord will make that time short to help the special people he has chosen.

²¹ “Someone might say to you at that time, ‘Look, there is the Messiah!’ Or another person might say, ‘There he is!’ But don’t believe them. ²² False messiahs and false prophets will come and do miracles and wonders,^[b] trying to fool the people God has chosen, if that is possible. ²³ So be careful. Now I have warned you about all this before it happens.