Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸¹ I faint for your salvation; but I expect your help, for you have promised it. ⁸² My eyes are straining to see your promises come true. When will you comfort me with your help? ⁸³ I am shriveled like a wineskin in the smoke, exhausted with waiting. But still I cling to your laws and obey them. ⁸⁴ How long must I wait before you punish those who persecute me? ^85-86 These proud men who hate your truth and laws have dug deep pits for me to fall in. Their lies have brought me into deep trouble. Help me, for you love only truth. ⁸⁷ They had almost finished me off, yet I refused to yield and disobey your laws. ⁸⁸ In your kindness, spare my life; then I can continue to obey you.

16 On yet another occasion God spoke to me, and said:

² You must not marry and have children here. ³ For the children born in this city and their mothers and fathers ⁴ shall die from terrible diseases. No one shall mourn for them or bury them, but their bodies shall lie on the ground to rot and fertilize the soil. They shall die from war and famine, and their bodies shall be picked apart by vultures and wild animals. ⁵ Do not mourn or weep for them, for I have removed my protection and my peace from them—taken away my loving-kindness and my mercies. ⁶ Both great and small shall die in this land, unburied and unmourned, and their friends shall not cut themselves nor shave their heads as signs of sorrow (as is their heathen custom). ⁷ No one shall comfort the mourners with a meal nor send them a cup of wine expressing grief for their parents’ death.

⁸ As a sign to them of these sad days ahead,^[a] don’t you join them anymore in their feasts and parties—don’t even eat a meal with them. ⁹ For the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: In your own lifetime, before your very eyes, I will end all laughter in this land—the happy songs, the marriage feasts, the songs of bridegrooms and of brides.

¹⁰ And when you tell the people all these things and they ask, “Why has the Lord decreed such terrible things against us? What have we done to merit such treatment? What is our sin against the Lord our God?” ¹¹ tell them the Lord’s reply is this: Because your fathers forsook me. They worshiped other gods and served them; they did not keep my laws, ¹² and you have been worse than your fathers were! You follow evil to your hearts’ content and refuse to listen to me. ¹³ Therefore, I will throw you out of this land and chase you into a foreign land where neither you nor your fathers have been before, and there you can go ahead and worship your idols all you like—and I will grant you no favors!

⁷ Now as for you, dear brothers who are waiting for the Lord’s return, be patient, like a farmer who waits until the autumn for his precious harvest to ripen. ⁸ Yes, be patient. And take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.

⁹ Don’t grumble about each other, brothers. Are you yourselves above criticism? For see! The great Judge is coming. He is almost here. Let him do whatever criticizing must be done.^[a]

¹⁰ For examples of patience in suffering, look at the Lord’s prophets. ¹¹ We know how happy they are now because they stayed true to him then, even though they suffered greatly for it. Job is an example of a man who continued to trust the Lord in sorrow; from his experiences we can see how the Lord’s plan finally ended in good, for he is full of tenderness and mercy.

¹² But most of all, dear brothers, do not swear either by heaven or earth or anything else; just say a simple yes or no so that you will not sin and be condemned for it.