Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Present Defeat and Past Deliverance
For the music director. Of the sons of Korah. A maskil.[a]
44 O God, we have heard with our ears;
our ancestors[b] have told us
of work you worked in their days,
in days of old.
2 You with your hand drove out the nations,
but them[c] you planted.
You harmed the peoples,
but them[d] you let spread out.
3 For not with their sword
did they possess the land,
and their arm did not give them victory.
Rather it was your right hand and your arm
and the light of your presence,
because you delighted in them.
4 You are my king, O God.
Command[e] victories for Jacob.
5 By you we push down our enemies;
by your name we tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For I do not trust my bow,
and my sword cannot give me victory.
7 Rather you have saved us from our enemies,[f]
and have humiliated those who hate us.
8 In God we boast all the day,
and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah
9 Surely you have rejected and disgraced us,
and have not gone out with our armies.
10 You have caused us to pull back from the enemy,
and so those who hate us have plundered for themselves.
11 You have given us as sheep for food,
and among the nations you have scattered us.
12 You have sold your people cheaply,[g]
and did not profit by their price.
13 You have made us a taunt to our neighbors,
a derision and a scorn to those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations,
a shaking of the head among the peoples.
15 All day long[h] my disgrace is before me,
and the shame of my face covers me,
16 because of the voice of the taunter and the reviler,
because of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this has befallen us, though we have not forgotten you,
and we have not been false to your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
and our steps have not turned aside from your way.
19 But you have crushed us in a place of jackals,
and have covered us with deep shadow.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
or had spread out our hands in prayer to a foreign god,
21 would not God discover this,
for he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 Rather, on account of you we are killed all day long;[i]
we are accounted as sheep for slaughter.
23 Wake up! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake! Do not reject forever.
24 Why do you hide your face?
Have you forgotten our misery and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust.
Our body[j] clings to the ground.
26 Rise up! Be a help for us,
and redeem us for the sake of your loyal love.
A Call to Yahweh
6 Come, let us return to Yahweh;
because it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck us down and will bind us up.
2 He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live in his presence.[a]
3 Let us know, let us press on to know Yahweh;
his rising is sure like the dawn.
He will come like the showers to us,
like the spring rain that waters the earth.
4 What will I do with you, O Ephraim?
What will I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early in the morning.
5 Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment[b] goes forth like the light.
6 Because I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
7 But like Adam, they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
8 Gilead is a city of evil,
a cunning city because of blood.[c]
9 Like bandits lying in wait,
so is a band of priests;
they murder on the road to Shechem;
indeed, they commit a monstrous crime.
10 In the house of Israel I have seen something horrible;
Ephraim’s unfaithfulness is there.
Israel is defiled.
30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness—even the righteousness that is by faith. 31 But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, did not attain to the law. 32 Why that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if by works. They stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble[a], 33 just as it is written,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble[b],
and a rock that causes them to fall[c],
and the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”[d]
The Righteousness of God through Faith in Christ
10 Brothers, the desire of my heart and my prayer to God on behalf of them is for their salvation. 2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For ignoring the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own,[e] they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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