Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
BOOK THREE
Psalms 73–89
Psalm 73
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 Truly God is good to Israel,
to the pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet almost stumbled;
my steps had almost slipped.
3 For I was envious at the boastful;
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For there are no pains in their death;
their bodies are fat.
5 They are not in trouble as other people;
nor are they plagued like others.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes bulge with fatness;
they have more than a heart could wish.
8 They mock and speak with evil oppression;
they speak loftily.
9 They set their mouth against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore people turn to them,
and abundant waters are drunk by them.
11 They say, “How does God know?
And is there knowledge with the Most High?”
12 Observe, these are the wicked, always at ease;
they increase in riches.
13 Surely I have kept my heart pure for nothing,
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I am plagued,
and chastened every morning.
15 If I said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of Your children.
16 When I thought to understand this,
it was troublesome in my eyes,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their end.
18 Surely You have set them in slippery places;
You have brought them down to ruin.
19 How they come to desolation, as in a moment!
They have come to an end, utterly consumed with terrors.
20 As a dream when one awakes,
so, O Lord, when You awake,
You will despise their form.
21 Thus my heart was embittered,
and I was pierced in my feelings.
22 I was a brute and did not understand;
I was as a beast before You.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with You;
You have held me by my right hand.
24 You will guide me with Your counsel,
and afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.
26 My flesh and my heart fails,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
27 For those who are far from You will perish;
You destroy everyone who is unfaithful to You.
28 But it is good for me to draw near to God;
I have taken my refuge in the Lord God,
that I may declare all Your works.
Jonah Preaches at Nineveh
3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”
3 So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three-day journey across. 4 Jonah began to enter the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “In forty days’ time, Nineveh will be overthrown!” 5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast. And everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself in sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he made a proclamation in Nineveh:
“By decree of the king and his nobles:
No man or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not eat or drink water. 8 Both man and animals shall cover themselves with sackcloth and cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change His mind. He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.”
10 When God saw their actions, that they turned from their evil ways, He changed His mind about the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.
8 But, beloved, do not be ignorant of this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness. But He is patient with us, because He does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat. The earth also and the works that are in it will be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things are to be destroyed, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 while you are waiting for and desiring the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will be consumed by intense heat? 13 But, according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.