Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
16 Save me, O God, because I have come to you for refuge. 2 I said to him, “You are my Lord; I have no other help but yours.” 3 I want the company of the godly men and women in the land; they are the true nobility. 4 Those choosing other gods shall all be filled with sorrow; I will not offer the sacrifices they do or even speak the names of their gods.
5 The Lord himself is my inheritance, my prize. He is my food and drink, my highest joy! He guards all that is mine. 6 He sees that I am given pleasant brooks and meadows as my share![a] What a wonderful inheritance! 7 I will bless the Lord who counsels me; he gives me wisdom in the night. He tells me what to do.
8 I am always thinking of the Lord; and because he is so near, I never need to stumble or fall.
9 Heart, body, and soul are filled with joy. 10 For you will not leave me among the dead; you will not allow your beloved one to rot in the grave. 11 You have let me experience the joys of life and the exquisite pleasures of your own eternal presence.
15 But Israel[a] was soon overfed;
Yes, fat and bloated;
Then, in plenty, they forsook their God.
They shrugged away the Rock of their salvation.
16 Israel began to follow foreign gods,
And Jehovah was very angry;
He was jealous of his people.
17 They sacrificed to heathen gods,
To new gods never before worshiped.
18 They spurned the Rock who had made them,
Forgetting it was God who had given them birth.
19 God saw what they were doing,
And detested them!
His sons and daughters were insulting him.
20 He said, ‘I will abandon them;
See what happens to them then!
For they are a stubborn, faithless generation.
21 They have made me very jealous of their idols,
Which are not gods at all.
Now I, in turn, will make them jealous
By giving my affections
To the foolish Gentile nations of the world.
22 For my anger has kindled a fire
That burns to the depths of the underworld,
Consuming the earth and all of its crops,
And setting its mountains on fire.
23 I will heap evils upon them
And shoot them down with my arrows.
24 I will waste them with hunger,
Burning fever, and fatal disease.
I will devour them! I will set wild beasts upon them,
To rip them apart with their teeth;
And deadly serpents
Crawling in the dust.
25 Outside, the enemies’ sword—
Inside, the plague[b]—
Shall terrorize young men and girls alike;
The baby nursing at the breast,
And aged men.
26 I had decided to scatter them to distant lands,
So that even the memory of them
Would disappear.
27 But then I thought,
“My enemies will boast,
‘Israel is destroyed by our own might;
It was not the Lord
Who did it!’”
39 Don’t you see that I alone am God?
I kill and make live.
I wound and heal—
No one delivers from my power.
40-41 I raise my hand to heaven
And vow by my existence,
That I will whet the lightning of my sword!
And hurl my punishments upon my enemies!
42 My arrows shall be drunk with blood!
My sword devours the flesh and blood
Of all the slain and captives.
The heads of the enemy
Are gory with blood.’
43 Praise his people,
Gentile nations,
For he will avenge his people,
Taking vengeance on his enemies,
Purifying his land
And his people.”
21 He gave them strict orders not to speak of this to anyone. 22 “For I, the Messiah,[a] must suffer much,” he said, “and be rejected by the Jewish leaders—the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the Law—and be killed; and three days later I will come back to life again!”
23 Then he said to all,
26 “When I, the Messiah, come in my glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels, I will be ashamed then of all who are ashamed of me and of my words now. 27 But this is the simple truth—some of you who are standing here right now will not die until you have seen the Kingdom of God.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.