Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Proclamation of His Grace
8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and great in mercy.
9 The Lord is good to all.
His compassion extends over all he has made.
Praise
10 Everyone you have made will thank you, O Lord,
and the ones you favor will bless you.
11 They will tell about the glory of your kingdom,
and they will speak about your might,
12 to make known his might to the children of Adam,
to make known the glorious splendor of his kingdom.
Proclamation of His Kingdom
13 Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The Lord is faithful to all his words
and merciful toward all he has made.[a]
14 The Lord lifts up all who fall,
and he supports all who are bowed down.
A Call to Repent
1 In the eighth month of the second year[a] of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.
2 The Lord was very angry with your forefathers.[b] 3 Therefore, now you are to tell this people that this is what the Lord of Armies says to them.
Return to me, declares the Lord of Armies, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Armies. 4 Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed, “This is what the Lord of Armies says. Return, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.”
But our forefathers did not listen, nor did they pay attention to me, declares the Lord. 5 Your forefathers—where are they now? And those prophets—did they go on living indefinitely? 6 But my words and my statutes, which I commanded to my servants the prophets, caught up with our forefathers, didn’t they?
Then they[c] returned[d] and said, “Because of our ways and our deeds, the Lord of Armies has done to us just as he planned to do to us.”
7 Or don’t you know, brothers[a] (since I am speaking to those who know the law), that a law has jurisdiction over a person only as long as he lives? 2 For example, a married woman is bound to her husband by law as long as he is alive, but if he dies, she is released from this law regarding her husband. 3 So then, she will be labeled an adulteress if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from this law, and she is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
4 In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death in regard to the law by the body of Christ, so that you may be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, in order that we might produce fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, strong sinful desires stirred up by the law were at work in our members, with the result that we produced fruit that results in death. 6 But now we have been released from the law by dying to what held us in its grip, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the letter of the law.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.