Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
7 “Hear, O My people, and I will speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against you;
(A)I am God, your God!
8 (B)I will not [a]rebuke you (C)for your sacrifices
Or your burnt offerings,
Which are continually before Me.
9 (D)I will not take a bull from your house,
Nor goats out of your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is Mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the mountains,
And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
(E)For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.
13 (F)Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
14 (G)Offer to God thanksgiving,
And (H)pay your vows to the Most High.
15 (I)Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”
7 In the days of her affliction and roaming,
Jerusalem (A)remembers all her pleasant things
That she had in the days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
With no one to help her,
The adversaries saw her
And mocked at her [a]downfall.
8 (B)Jerusalem has sinned gravely,
Therefore she has become [b]vile.
All who honored her despise her
Because (C)they have seen her nakedness;
Yes, she sighs and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts;
She (D)did not consider her destiny;
Therefore her collapse was awesome;
She had no comforter.
“O Lord, behold my affliction,
For the enemy is exalted!”
17 (A)These are wells without water, [a]clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness [b]forever.
Deceptions of False Teachers
18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who [c]have actually escaped from those who live in error. 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of [d]corruption; (B)for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into [e]bondage. 20 For if, after they (C)have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are (D)again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For (E)it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: (F)“A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.