Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 66
Praise for God’s Mighty Acts
For the choir director. A song. A psalm.
1 Let the whole earth shout joyfully to God!(A)
2 Sing about the glory of his name;
make his praise glorious.(B)
3 Say to God, “How awe-inspiring are your works!
Your enemies will cringe before you
because of your great strength.(C)
4 The whole earth will worship you
and sing praise to you.
They will sing praise to your name.”(D)Selah
5 Come and see the wonders of God;(E)
his acts for humanity[a] are awe-inspiring.
6 He turned the sea into dry land,
and they crossed the river on foot.(F)
There we rejoiced in him.(G)
7 He rules forever by his might;
he keeps his eye on the nations.(H)
The rebellious should not exalt themselves.(I)Selah
8 Bless our God, you peoples;
let the sound of his praise be heard.(J)
9 He keeps us alive[b]
and does not allow our feet to slip.(K)
Judah’s King Manasseh
21 Manasseh(A) was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.(B) 2 He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight,(C) imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.(D) 3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed(E) and reestablished the altars for Baal. He made an Asherah,(F) as King Ahab of Israel had done;(G) he also bowed in worship to all the stars in the sky(H) and served them. 4 He built altars in the Lord’s temple,(I) where the Lord had said, “Jerusalem is where I will put my name.”(J) 5 He built altars to all the stars in the sky(K) in both courtyards of the Lord’s temple.(L) 6 He sacrificed his son in the fire,[a](M) practiced witchcraft and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists.(N) He did a huge amount of evil in the Lord’s sight, angering him.(O)
7 Manasseh set up the carved image of Asherah, which he made, in the temple that the Lord had spoken about to David and his son Solomon: “I will establish my name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.(P) 8 I will never again cause the feet of the Israelites to wander from the land I gave to their ancestors if only they will be careful to do all I have commanded them—the whole law that my servant Moses commanded them.”(Q) 9 But they did not listen; Manasseh caused them to stray so that they did worse evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.(R)
10 The Lord said through his servants the prophets, 11 “Since King Manasseh of Judah has committed all these detestable acts(S)—worse evil than the Amorites(T) who preceded him had done—and by means of his idols has also caused Judah to sin, 12 this is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I am about to bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that everyone who hears about it will shudder.[b](U) 13 I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line used on Samaria and the mason’s level used on the house of Ahab,(V) and I will wipe(W) Jerusalem clean as one wipes a bowl—wiping it and turning it upside down. 14 I will abandon the remnant(X) of my inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will become plunder and spoil to all their enemies, 15 because they have done what is evil in my sight and have angered me from the day their ancestors came out of Egypt until today.’”(Y)
The Problem of Sin in Us
14 For we know that the law is spiritual,(A) but I am of the flesh,[a] sold(B) as a slave under sin.(C) 15 For I do not understand what I am doing,(D) because I do not practice what I want to do,(E) but I do what I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh.(F) For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. 19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this law:[b](G) When I want to do what is good,[c] evil is present with me. 22 For in my inner self[d] I delight in God’s law,(H) 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body,[e](I) waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?(J) 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!(K) So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.
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