Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁹⁷ Oh, how I love them. I think about them all day long. ⁹⁸ They make me wiser than my enemies because they are my constant guide. ⁹⁹ Yes, wiser than my teachers, for I am ever thinking of your rules. ¹⁰⁰ They make me even wiser than the aged.

¹⁰¹ I have refused to walk the paths of evil, for I will remain obedient to your Word. ^102-103 No, I haven’t turned away from what you taught me; your words are sweeter than honey. ¹⁰⁴ And since only your rules can give me wisdom and understanding, no wonder I hate every false teaching.

¹⁰ But the Lord says: I will stand up and show my power and might. ¹¹ You Assyrians will gain nothing by all your efforts. Your own breath will turn to fire and kill you. ¹² Your armies will be burned to lime, like thorns cut down and tossed in the fire. ¹³ Listen to what I have done, O nations far away! And you that are near, acknowledge my might!

¹⁴ The sinners among my people shake with fear. “Which one of us,” they cry, “can live here in the presence of this all-consuming, everlasting fire?” ¹⁵ I will tell you who can live here: All who are honest and fair, who reject making profit by fraud, who hold back their hands from taking bribes, who refuse to listen to those who plot murder, who shut their eyes to all enticement to do wrong. ¹⁶ Such as these shall dwell on high. The rocks of the mountains will be their fortress of safety; food will be supplied to them, and they will have all the water they need.

¹⁶ “You didn’t choose me! I chose you! I appointed you to go and produce lovely fruit always, so that no matter what you ask for from the Father, using my name, he will give it to you. ¹⁷ I demand that you love each other, ¹⁸ for you get enough hate from the world! But then, it hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ The world would love you if you belonged to it; but you don’t—for I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you. ²⁰ Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave isn’t greater than his master!’ So since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you! ²¹ The people of the world will persecute you because you belong to me, for they don’t know God who sent me.

²² “They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Anyone hating me is also hating my Father. ²⁴ If I hadn’t done such mighty miracles among them they would not be counted guilty. But as it is, they saw these miracles and yet they hated both of us—me and my Father. ²⁵ This has fulfilled what the prophets said concerning the Messiah, ‘They hated me without reason.’