◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) / Psalm 146 (God opens the eyes of the blind); Isaiah 42:14-21 (God will heal the blind); Colossians 1:9-14 (The inheritance of the saints in light) (New English Translation)

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March 21, 2023

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 146

Psalm 146^[a]

146 Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, O my soul.
²I will praise the Lord as long as I live.
I will sing praises to my God as long as I exist.
³Do not trust in princes,
or in human beings, who cannot deliver.^[b]
⁴Their life’s breath departs, they return to the ground.
On that day their plans die.^[c]
⁵How blessed is the one whose helper is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶the one who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who remains forever faithful,^[d]
⁷vindicates the oppressed,^[e]
and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord releases the imprisoned.
⁸The Lord gives sight to the blind.
The Lord lifts up all who are bent over.^[f]
The Lord loves the godly.
⁹The Lord protects the resident foreigner.
He lifts up the fatherless and the widow,^[g]
but he opposes the wicked.^[h]
¹⁰The Lord rules forever,
your God, O Zion, throughout the generations to come.^[i]
Praise the Lord!

Isaiah 42:14-21

¹⁴“I have been inactive^[a] for a long time;
I kept quiet and held back.
Like a woman in labor I groan;
I pant and gasp.^[b]
¹⁵I will make the trees on the mountains and hills wither up;^[c]
I will dry up all their vegetation.
I will turn streams into islands,^[d]
and dry up pools of water.^[e]
¹⁶I will lead the blind along an unfamiliar way;^[f]
I will guide them down paths they have never traveled.^[g]
I will turn the darkness in front of them into light,
and level out the rough ground.^[h]
This is what I will do for them.
I will not abandon them.
¹⁷Those who trust in idols
will turn back and be utterly humiliated,^[i]
those who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’

The Lord Reasons with His People

¹⁸“Listen, you deaf ones!
Take notice,^[j] you blind ones!
¹⁹My servant is truly blind,
my messenger is truly deaf.
My covenant partner,^[k] the servant of the Lord, is truly blind.^[l]
²⁰You see^[m] many things, but don’t comprehend;^[n]
their ears are open, but do not hear.”
²¹The Lord wanted to exhibit his justice
by magnifying his law and displaying it.^[o]

Footnotes

Isaiah 42:14 tn Heb “silent” (so NASB, NIV, TEV, NLT); CEV “have held my temper.”
Isaiah 42:14 sn The imagery depicts the Lord as a warrior who is eager to fight and can no longer hold himself back from the attack.
Isaiah 42:15 tn Heb “I will dry up the mountains and hills.” The “mountains and hills” stand by synecdoche for the trees that grow on them. Some prefer to derive the verb from a homonymic root and translate, “I will lay waste.”
Isaiah 42:15 tc The Hebrew text reads, “I will turn streams into coastlands [or “islands”].” Scholars who believe that this reading makes little sense have proposed an emendation of אִיִּים (ʾiyyim, “islands”) to צִיּוֹת (tsiyyot, “dry places”; cf. NCV, NLT, TEV). However, since all the versions support the MT reading, there is insufficient grounds for an emendation here. Although the imagery of changing rivers into islands is somewhat strange, J. N. Oswalt describes this imagery against the backdrop of rivers of the Near East. The receding of these rivers at times occasioned the appearance of previously submerged islands (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:126).
Isaiah 42:15 sn The imagery of this verse, which depicts the Lord bringing a curse of infertility to the earth, metaphorically describes how the Lord will destroy his enemies.
Isaiah 42:16 tn Heb “a way they do not know” (so NASB); NRSV “a road they do not know.”
Isaiah 42:16 tn Heb “in paths they do not know I will make them walk.”
Isaiah 42:16 tn Heb “and the rough ground into a level place.”
Isaiah 42:17 tn Heb “be ashamed with shame”; ASV, NASB “be utterly put to shame.”
Isaiah 42:18 tn Heb “look to see”; NAB, NCV “look and see”; NRSV “look up and see.”
Isaiah 42:19 tc The precise meaning of מְשֻׁלָּם (m^eshullam) in this context is uncertain. In later biblical Hebrew the form (which appears to be a Pual participle from the root שָׁלַם, shalam) occurs as a proper name, Meshullam. The Pual of שָׁלַם (“be complete”) is attested with the meaning “repaid, requited,” but that makes little sense here. BDB 1023 s.v. שָׁלַם relates the form to the denominative verb שָׁלַם (“be at peace”) and paraphrases “one in a covenant of peace” (J. N. Oswalt suggests “the covenanted one”; Isaiah [NICOT], 2:128, n. 59) Some emend the form to מֹשְׁלָם (mosh^elam, “their ruler”) or to מְשֻׁלָּחִי (m^eshullakhi, “my sent [or “commissioned”] one”), which fits nicely in the parallelism (note “my messenger” in the previous line). The translation above assumes an emendation to כְּמוֹ שֹׁלְמִי (k^emo shol^emi, “like my ally”). Isaiah uses כְּמוֹ in 30:22 and perhaps 51:5; for שֹׁלְמי (“my ally”) see Ps 7:5 HT (7:4 ET).
Isaiah 42:19 tn Heb “Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like my messenger I send? Who is blind like my commissioned one, blind like the servant of the Lord?” The point of the rhetorical questions is that no one is as blind/deaf as this servant. In this context the Lord’s “servant” is exiled Israel (cf. 41:8-9), which is spiritually blind and deaf and has failed to fulfill God’s purpose for it. This servant stands in contrast to the ideal “Israel” of the servant songs.
Isaiah 42:20 tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has a perfect, second person masculine singular; the marginal reading (Qere) has an infinitive absolute, which functions here as a finite verb.
Isaiah 42:20 tn Heb “but you do not guard [i.e., retain in your memory]”; NIV “but have paid no attention.”
Isaiah 42:21 tn Heb “The Lord was pleased for the sake of his righteousness [or “justice”], he was magnifying [the] law and was making [it] glorious.” The Lord contrasts his good intentions for the people with their present crisis (v. 22). To demonstrate his just character and attract the nations, the Lord wanted to showcase his law among and through Israel (Deut 4:5-8). But Israel disobeyed (v. 24) and failed to carry out their commission.

Colossians 1:9-14

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

⁹For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you,^[a] have not ceased praying for you and asking God^[b] to fill^[c] you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so that you may live^[d] worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects^[e]—bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of^[f] all patience and steadfastness, joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share^[g] in the saints’^[h] inheritance in the light. ¹³He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves,^[i] ¹⁴in whom we have redemption,^[j] the forgiveness of sins.

Footnotes

Colossians 1:9 tn Or “heard about it”; Grk “heard.” There is no direct object stated in the Greek (direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context). A direct object is expected by an English reader, however, so most translations supply one. Here, however, it is not entirely clear what the author “heard”: a number of translations supply “it” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV; NAB “this”), but this could refer back either to (1) “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8, or (2) “your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints” (v. 4). In light of this uncertainty, other translations supply “about you” (TEV, NIV, CEV, NLT). This is preferred by the present translation since, while it does not resolve the ambiguity entirely, it does make it less easy for the English reader to limit the reference only to “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8.
Colossians 1:9 tn The term “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but the following reference to “the knowledge of his will” makes it clear that “God” is in view as the object of the “praying and asking,” and should therefore be included in the English translation for clarity.
Colossians 1:9 tn The ἵνα (hina) clause has been translated as substantival, indicating the content of the prayer and asking. The idea of purpose may also be present in this clause.
Colossians 1:10 tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripatēsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseuchomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”
Colossians 1:10 tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”
Colossians 1:11 tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.
Colossians 1:12 tn BDAG 473 s.v. ἱκανόω states, “τινὰ εἴς τι someone for someth. Col 1:12.” The point of the text is that God has qualified the saints for a “share” or “portion” in the inheritance of the saints.
Colossians 1:12 tn Grk “the inheritance of the saints.” The genitive noun τῶν ἁγίων (tōn hagiōn) is a possessive genitive: “the saints’ inheritance.”
Colossians 1:13 tn Here αὐτοῦ (autou) has been translated as a subjective genitive (“he loves”).
Colossians 1:14 tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou haimatos autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule mss (614 630 1505 2464) as well as a few, mostly secondary, versional and patristic witnesses. But the reading was prompted by the parallel in Eph 1:7 where the wording is solid. If these words had been in the original of Colossians, why would scribes omit them here but not in Eph 1:7? Further, the testimony on behalf of the shorter reading is quite overwhelming: א A B C D F G Ψ 075 0150 6 33 1739 1881 M latt co as well as several other versions and fathers. The conviction that “through his blood” is not authentic in Col 1:14 is as strong as the conviction that these words are authentic in Eph 1:7.

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 146[a]

Footnotes

The Lord Reasons with His People

Footnotes

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

Footnotes

Psalm 146^[a]