Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Folly and Wickedness of Men.
To the Chief Musician; in a mournful strain. A skillful song, or didactic or reflective poem of David.
53 The [empty-headed] fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt and evil, and have committed repulsive injustice;
There is no one who does good.
2
God has looked down from heaven upon the children of men
To see if there is anyone who understands,
Who seeks after God [who requires Him, who longs for Him as essential to life].
3
Every one of them has turned aside and fallen away;
Together they have become filthy and corrupt;
There is no one who does good, no, not even one.(A)
4
Have workers of wickedness no knowledge or no understanding?
They eat up My people as though they ate bread
And have not called upon God.
5
There they were, in great terror and dread, where there had been no terror or dread;
For God scattered the bones of him who besieged you;
You have put them to shame, because God has rejected them.
6
Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores [the fortunes of] His people,
Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
The Sabbatic Year and Year of Jubilee
25 The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I am giving you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop. 4 But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow [seed in] your field nor prune your vineyard. 5 Whatever reseeds itself (uncultivated) in your harvest you shall not reap, nor shall you gather the grapes from your uncultivated vine, it shall be a year of sabbatical rest for the land. 6 And all of you shall have for food whatever the [untilled] land produces during its Sabbath year; yourself, and your male and female slaves, your hired servant, and the foreigners who reside among you, 7 even your domestic animals and the [wild] animals that are in your land shall have all its crops to eat.
The Year of Jubilee
8 ‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the ram’s horn everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month (almost October); on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and [a]proclaim freedom [for the slaves] throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee (year of remission) for you, and each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property [that was sold to another because of poverty], and each of you shall return to his family [from whom he was separated by bondage]. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you; you shall not sow [seed], nor reap what reseeds itself, nor gather the grapes of the uncultivated vines. 12 For it is the Jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat its crops out of the field.
13 ‘In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property. 14 If you sell anything to your friend or buy from your friend, you shall not wrong one another. 15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall [b]buy from your friend. And he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops [which may be harvested before you must restore the property to him]. 16 If the years [until the next Jubilee] are many, you shall increase the price, but if the years remaining are few, you shall reduce the price, because it is the number of crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God [with profound reverence]; for I am the Lord your God.
18 ‘Therefore you shall carry out My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them, so that you may live securely on the land. 19 Then the land will yield its produce, so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it.
9 Then the angel said to me, “Write, ‘[a]Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the [b]Lamb.’” And he said to me [further], “These are the true and exact words of God.”(A) 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he [stopped me and] said to me, “You must not do that; I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters who have and hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God [alone]. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy [His life and teaching are the heart of prophecy].”(B)
Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.