Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A psalm of David when he was in the Desert of Judah.
63 God, you are my God.
I seek you with all my heart.
With all my strength I thirst for you
in this dry desert
where there isn’t any water.
2 I have seen you in the sacred tent.
There I have seen your power and your glory.
3 Your love is better than life.
So I will bring glory to you with my lips.
4 I will praise you as long as I live.
I will call on your name when I lift up my hands in prayer.
5 I will be as satisfied as if I had eaten the best food there is.
I will sing praise to you with my mouth.
6 As I lie on my bed I remember you.
I think of you all night long.
7 Because you have helped me,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 I hold on to you tightly.
Your powerful right hand takes good care of me.
9 Those who want to kill me will be destroyed.
They will go down into the grave.
10 They will be killed by swords.
They will become food for wild dogs.
11 But the king will be filled with joy because of what God has done.
All those who make promises in God’s name will be able to brag.
But the mouths of liars will be shut.
1 A message from the Lord came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. Here is what Joel said.
Locusts Attack the Land
2 Elders, listen to me.
Pay attention, all you who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your whole life?
Did it ever happen to your people
who lived long ago?
3 Tell your children about it.
Let them tell their children.
And let their children tell it
to those who live after them.
4 The giant locusts have eaten
what the common locusts have left.
The young locusts have eaten
what the giant locusts have left.
And other locusts have eaten
what the young locusts have left.
5 Get up and weep, you people who drink too much!
Cry, all you who drink wine!
Cry because the fresh wine
has been taken away from you.
6 The locusts are like a mighty army
that has marched into our land.
There are so many of them
they can’t even be counted.
Their teeth are as sharp as a lion’s teeth.
They are like the fangs of a female lion.
7 The locusts have completely destroyed our vines.
They have wiped out our fig trees.
They’ve stripped off the bark and thrown it away.
They’ve left the branches bare.
8 My people, mourn like a virgin
who is dressed in the clothes of sadness.
She is sad because she has lost
the young man she was going to marry.
9 No one brings grain offerings and drink offerings
to the Lord’s house anymore.
So the priests who serve the Lord
are filled with sorrow.
10 Our fields are wiped out.
The ground is dried up.
The grain is destroyed.
The fresh wine is gone.
And there isn’t any more olive oil.
11 Farmers, be sad.
Cry, you who grow vines.
Mourn because the wheat and barley are gone.
The crops in the fields are destroyed.
12 The vines and fig trees are dried up.
The pomegranate, palm and apple trees
don’t have any fruit on them.
In fact, all the trees in the fields are dried up.
And my people’s joy has faded away.
A Call to Mourn
13 Priests, put on the clothing of sadness and mourn.
Cry, you who serve at the altar.
Come, you who serve my God in the temple.
Spend the night dressed in the clothes of sadness.
Weep because no one brings grain offerings and drink offerings
to the house of your God anymore.
14 Announce a holy fast.
Tell the people not to eat anything.
Gather them together for a special service.
Send for the elders
and all who live in the land.
Have them come to the house of the Lord your God.
And pray to him.
Timothy Brings a Good Report
6 But Timothy has come to us from you just now. He has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have happy memories of us. He has also said that you desire to see us, just as we desire to see you. 7 Brothers and sisters, in all our trouble and suffering your faith encouraged us. 8 Now we really live, because you are standing firm in the Lord. 9 How can we thank God enough for you? We thank God because of all the joy we have in his presence. We have this joy because of you. 10 Night and day we pray very hard that we will see you again. We want to give you what is missing in your faith.
11 Now may a way be opened up for us to come to you. May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus do this. 12 May the Lord make your love grow. May it be like a rising flood. May your love for one another increase. May it also increase for everyone else. May it be just like our love for you. 13 May the Lord give you strength in your hearts. Then you will be holy and without blame in the sight of our God and Father. May that be true when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
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