Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
David wrote this prayer.
God will help me
16 Please keep me safe, God,
because I come to you for help.
2 I have said to the Lord,
‘You are my Lord.
All the good things that I have in my life
are gifts from you.’
3 When I think about your own people who live in this land,
it makes me happy!
They are truly great people!
4 But many troubles will come
to people who choose to worship other gods.
I will not join with them
to offer gifts of blood to their gods.
I will never use the names of their gods
to make promises.
5 You, Lord, are all that I need.
What you give to me is enough,
for me and for my descendants.
6 Yes, you have given to me a good way of life.
Your gifts are better than good fields
or valuable land.
7 I will praise the Lord,
who is my guide through life.
In the dark nights,
you help me to learn what is right.
8 I will always trust the Lord to be with me.
He is very near to me,
so I will not be upset.
9 I am truly happy and I thank God.
I know that my life is safe with God.
10 You, Lord, will not leave me
in the deep hole of death.
As one who belongs to you,
you will not leave my body to spoil in the grave.
11 You will lead me along the path of life.
Because you are with me,
I am very happy.
I know that I will be with you for ever,
and that makes me very happy!
15 The Israelites became rich and fat.[a]
They turned against God.
They were full of good food, but they turned away from God.
He was the one who made them.
He was the strong Rock who kept them safe.
But they no longer respected him.
16 They worshipped foreign gods.
So the Lord became angry and jealous.
They made idols which he hated.
17 They offered sacrifices to demons, instead of to God.
They worshipped new gods which they had not known before.
Your ancestors had never respected those gods.
18 You forgot about your strong Rock,
the God who gave you life.
19 When the Lord saw this, he turned away from them.
His sons and daughters had made him angry.
20 He said, ‘I will not continue to help them.
I will see what happens to them when I leave them alone.
They are children who do not obey me.
They have not served me faithfully.
21 They have made me jealous as they serve false gods.
They have made me angry as they worship useless idols.
So I will make them jealous as I help a useless nation.
I will make them angry as I bless a foolish nation.
22 I will become so angry that I punish them very much.
I will destroy them like a hot fire.
It will be like a fire that reaches deep down into the place of dead people.
It will destroy the ground and everything that grows on it.
It will burn deep down to the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will cause them to have many kinds of trouble.
I will attack them like a soldier who shoots all his arrows.
24 They will become weak and hungry.
They will have bad diseases that give them much pain.
I will cause wild animals to attack them.
Snakes will bite them and they will die.
25 If they go out of their homes, their enemies will kill them.
If they stay at home, they will die from fear.
Young men and young women will die.
Babies and old men will also die.
26 I wanted to remove my people completely,
so that nobody would ever remember them.
27 But then their enemies would boast.
They would not understand.
They would say, “We have destroyed these people with our own strength!
The Lord has not done this!” ’
39 Realize the truth! I alone am God.
There is no other god as well as me.
I can kill and I can give life.
I can hurt people and I can make them well again.
Nobody can stop me doing what I choose to do.
40 I lift up my hand to heaven and I make this strong promise:
“I promise you this, as surely as I live for ever:
41 I will make my sword very sharp.
It will move like lightning as I hold it in my hand.
I will punish my enemies as they deserve.
I will pay back everyone who hates me.
42 My arrows will have blood all over them.
My sword will cut into the bodies of my enemies.
Everyone that I take hold of will die.
I will cut off the heads of their leaders.” ’
43 So you people of other nations,
join with God's people to praise him!
He will punish those who have killed his servants.
He will punish all his enemies.
But he will forgive the sins of his people,
and he will make their land clean again.
21 Jesus spoke very strongly to them. He told them that they must not tell anyone about this.[a]
22 Then he said, ‘The Son of Man will have to suffer in many ways. The important Jews, the leaders of the priests and the teachers of God's Law will turn against him. People will kill him, but three days later God will cause him to become alive again.’[b]
23 Then Jesus said to all the people that were there, ‘A person who wants to be my disciple must not think about himself. He must decide that his own life is not important. Every day he must be like someone who carries his own cross to go and die. Then he may come with me as my disciple.
24 Whoever wants to keep his own life safe will lose it. But whoever gives his life to serve me will have true life. 25 A person may get everything in the whole world for himself. But if he loses his life, it would not be any good for him. He will have destroyed himself in the end. 26 You must not be ashamed of me and of my words. If you are, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you. One day he will return and everyone will see his power. He will come with God's holy angels and he will have the bright glory of his Father God. He will be ashamed of you on that day, if you are ashamed of him now.’
Three disciples see how great Jesus is
27 Then Jesus said, ‘What I tell you is true. Some people who are standing here will see clearly God begin to rule in his kingdom. They will see that before they die.’
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