Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Longing for the Temple Worship.
To the Chief Musician; set to a [a]Philistine lute. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
84 How lovely are Your dwelling places,
O Lord of hosts!
2
My soul (my life, my inner self) longs for and greatly desires the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
3
The bird has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young—
Even Your altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King and my God.
4
Blessed and greatly favored are those who dwell in Your house and Your presence;
They will be singing Your praises all the day long. Selah.
5
Blessed and greatly favored is the man whose strength is in You,
In [b]whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6
Passing through the Valley of Weeping ([c]Baca), they make it a place of springs;
The early rain also covers it with blessings.
7
They go from strength to strength [increasing in victorious power];
Each of them appears before God in Zion.
A Lament over Zion
9 Oh that my head were waters
And my eyes a fountain of tears,
That I might weep day and night
For the slain of the daughter of my people!
2
Oh that I had in the wilderness
A lodging place (a mere shelter) for wayfaring men,
That I might leave my people
And go away from them!
For they are all adulterers [worshiping idols instead of the Lord],
[They are] an assembly of treacherous men [of weak character, men without integrity].
3
“They bend their tongue like their bow;
[Their] lies and not truth prevail and grow strong in the land;
For they proceed from evil to evil,
And they do not know and understand and acknowledge Me,” says the Lord.
4
“Let everyone beware of his neighbor
And do not trust any brother.
For every brother is a supplanter [like Jacob, a deceiver, ready to grab his brother’s heel],
And every neighbor goes around as a slanderer.(A)
5
“Everyone deceives and mocks his neighbor
And does not speak the truth.
They have taught their tongue to speak lies;
They exhaust themselves with sin and cruelty.
6
“Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit [oppression upon oppression and deceit upon deceit];
Through deceit they refuse to know (understand) Me,” says the Lord.
7 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts,
“Behold, I will refine them [through suffering] and test them;
For how else should I deal with the daughter of My people?
8
“Their tongue is a murderous arrow;
It speaks deceit;
With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor,
But in his heart he lays traps and waits in ambush for him.
9
“Shall I not punish them for these things?” says the Lord.
“Shall I not avenge Myself
On such a nation as this?
10
“I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains,
And a [funeral] dirge for the pastures of the wilderness,
Because they are burned up and desolated so that no one passes through [them];
Nor can anyone hear the lowing of cattle.
Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they are gone.
11
“I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
A haunt and dwelling place of jackals;
And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
12 Who is the wise man who may understand this [without any doubt]? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined, laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? 13 The Lord said, “Because they have [a]turned away from My law which I set before them, and have not listened to and obeyed My voice nor walked in accordance with it, 14 but have walked stubbornly after their [own] heart and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,” 15 therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them bitter and poisonous water to drink. 16 I will [also] scatter them among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have annihilated them.”
“Difficult Times Will Come”
3 But understand this, that in the last days dangerous times [of great stress and trouble] will come [difficult days that will be hard to bear]. 2 For people will be lovers of self [narcissistic, self-focused], lovers of money [impelled by greed], boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane, 3 [and they will be] unloving [devoid of natural human affection, calloused and inhumane], irreconcilable, malicious gossips, devoid of self-control [intemperate, immoral], brutal, haters of good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of [sensual] pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of [outward] godliness (religion), although they have denied its power [for their conduct nullifies their claim of faith]. Avoid such people and keep far away from them. 6 For among them are those who worm their way into homes and captivate morally weak and spiritually-dwarfed women weighed down by [the burden of their] sins, easily swayed by various impulses, 7 always learning and listening to anybody who will teach them, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres [the court magicians of Egypt] opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, unqualified and worthless [as teachers] in regard to the faith.(A) 9 But they will not get very far, for their meaningless nonsense and ignorance will become obvious to everyone, as was that of Jannes and Jambres.
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