Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

64 ^1-2 Lord, listen to my complaint: Oh, preserve my life from the conspiracy of these wicked men, these gangs of criminals. ³ They cut me down with sharpened tongues; they aim their bitter words like arrows straight at my heart. ⁴ They shoot from ambush at the innocent. Suddenly the deed is done, yet they are not afraid. ⁵ They encourage each other to do evil. They meet in secret to set their traps. “He will never notice them here,” they say. ⁶ They keep a sharp lookout for opportunities of crime. They spend long hours with all their endless evil thoughts and plans.^[a]

⁷ But God himself will shoot them down. Suddenly his arrow will pierce them. ⁸ They will stagger backward, destroyed by those they spoke against. All who see it happening will scoff at them. ⁹ Then everyone shall stand in awe and confess the greatness of the miracles of God; at last they will realize what amazing things he does. ¹⁰ And the godly shall rejoice in the Lord, and trust and praise him.

19 The reply of Job:

² “How long are you going to trouble me, and try to break me with your words? ³ Ten times now you have declared I am a sinner. Why aren’t you ashamed to deal with me so harshly? ⁴ And if indeed I was wrong, you have yet to prove it. ⁵ You think yourselves so great? Then prove my guilt!

⁶ “The fact of the matter is that God has overthrown me and caught me in his net. ⁷ I scream for help and no one hears me. I shriek, but get no justice. ⁸ God has blocked my path and turned my light to darkness. ⁹ He has stripped me of my glory and removed the crown from my head. ¹⁰ He has broken me down on every side, and I am done for. He has destroyed all hope. ¹¹ His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy. ¹² He sends his troops to surround my tent.

¹³ “He has sent away my brothers and my friends. ¹⁴ My relatives have failed me; my friends have all forsaken me. ¹⁵ Those living in my home, even my servants, regard me as a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them. ¹⁶ I call my servant, but he doesn’t come; I even beg him! ¹⁷ My own wife and brothers refuse to recognize me. ¹⁸ Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they mock.

¹⁹ “My best friends abhor me. Those I loved have turned against me. ²⁰ I am skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.

²¹ “Oh, my friends, pity me, for the angry hand of God has touched me. ²² Why must you persecute me as God does? Why aren’t you satisfied with my anguish?

¹¹ Never forget that once you were heathen and that you were called godless and “unclean” by the Jews. (But their hearts, too, were still unclean, even though they were going through the ceremonies and rituals of the godly, for they circumcised themselves as a sign of godliness.) ¹² Remember that in those days you were living utterly apart from Christ; you were enemies of God’s children, and he had promised you no help. You were lost, without God, without hope.

¹³ But now you belong to Christ Jesus, and though you once were far away from God, now you have been brought very near to him because of what Jesus Christ has done for you with his blood.

¹⁴ For Christ himself is our way of peace. He has made peace between us Jews and you Gentiles by making us all one family,^[a] breaking down the wall of contempt that used to separate us. ¹⁵ By his death he ended the angry resentment between us, caused by the Jewish laws that favored the Jews and excluded the Gentiles, for he died to annul that whole system of Jewish laws. Then he took the two groups that had been opposed to each other and made them parts of himself; thus he fused us together to become one new person, and at last there was peace. ¹⁶ As parts of the same body, our anger against each other has disappeared, for both of us have been reconciled to God. And so the feud ended at last at the cross. ¹⁷ And he has brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were very far away from him, and to us Jews who were near. ¹⁸ Now all of us, whether Jews or Gentiles, may come to God the Father with the Holy Spirit’s help because of what Christ has done for us.

¹⁹ Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian.

²⁰ What a foundation you stand on now: the apostles and the prophets; and the cornerstone of the building is Jesus Christ himself! ²¹ We who believe are carefully joined together with Christ as parts of a beautiful, constantly growing temple for God. ²² And you also are joined with him and with each other by the Spirit and are part of this dwelling place of God.