Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 84
How Loved Is Your Dwelling Place
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For the choir director. According to gittith.[a] By the Sons of Korah.[b]
A psalm.
How Loved Is Your Dwelling Place
1 How I love your dwelling place, O Lord of Armies.
2 My soul grows weak and even wastes away,
as I long for the courtyards of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow has found a nest for herself,
where she may place her young near your altars,
O Lord of Armies, my King and my God.
The Blessings of Being There
4 How blessed are those who live in your house. Interlude
They are always praising you.
5 How blessed is everyone whose strength is found in you.
The highways to Jerusalem[c] are in their hearts.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,[d]
it becomes full of springs.[e]
The autumn rain also covers it with pools.[f]
7 They go from strength to strength.
Each one will appear before God in Zion.
9 I wish my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears.
Then I would weep day and night
for the fallen of my people.[a]
2 I wish there was a lodging place for travelers
in the wilderness.
Then I would leave my people
and get away from them.
They are all adulterers,
a society of traitors.
The Lord Gives a Warning
3 They bend their tongues like bows, to deceive.
It is not by faithfulness that they prevail in the land.
They go from evil to evil,
and they do not acknowledge me,
declares the Lord.
4 Everyone should be on guard against his friend.
Do not trust any brother,
for every brother is really a deceiver,
and every friend spreads slander.
5 Everyone betrays his friend,
and no one speaks the truth.
They have taught their tongues to lie.
They wear themselves out with sinning.
6 You, Jeremiah, live in the midst of deception!
In their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,
declares the Lord.
7 Therefore this is what the Lord of Armies says.
Watch me. I will refine them and test them.
What else can I do for my dear people?
8 Their tongues are like deadly arrows.
They speak deceitfully.
With their mouths they speak peacefully to their neighbors,
but in their hearts they set traps.
9 Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord.
Shall I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?
Jeremiah’s Grief
10 I will cry and sob for the mountains.
I will sing a lament for the pastures in the wilderness.
They are desolate and untraveled,
and not even the lowing of cattle is heard.
From the birds in the sky to all the animals below, everything has fled.
They are all gone.
The Lord’s Threat
11 I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a jackals’ den,
and I am going to lay waste to the cities of Judah,
so that no one can live there.
Jeremiah’s Question
12 Who is wise enough to understand this? Who has been instructed by the Lord so that he can explain it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one can pass through it?
The Lord’s Answer
13 The Lord said:
This happened because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them. They did not listen to my voice or live according to it. 14 Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts, and they have followed the Baals as their fathers taught them. 15 Therefore, this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Watch me. I am going to make this people eat wormwood and drink bitter water. 16 I will scatter them among nations that they and their fathers have not known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have destroyed them.
The Last Days
3 But know this: In the last days there will be terrible times. 2 For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemous, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, not able to reconcile with others, slanderous, without self-control, savage, haters of what is good, 4 treacherous, reckless, puffed up with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to an outward form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such people. 6 For some of them are people who worm their way into households and gain control over vulnerable women who are overwhelmed with sins, led astray by various evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these people oppose the truth. They are people of depraved minds, disqualified in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, because their foolishness will be quite clear to everyone, just as it was in the case of Jannes and Jambres.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.