Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A Prayer for Mercy
A song for going up to worship.
123 Lord, I look up to you.
You live in heaven.
2 Slaves depend on their masters.
And a female servant depends on her mistress.
In the same way, we depend on our God.
We wait for him to show us mercy.
3 Be kind to us, Lord. Be kind to us
because we have been insulted.
4 We have suffered many insults from lazy people
and much cruelty from the proud.
God Chooses Judges
16 Then the Lord chose leaders called judges.[a] These leaders saved the people of Israel from the robbers. 17 But the Israelites did not listen to their judges. They were not faithful to God. They followed other gods instead. In the past the people of Israel obeyed the Lord’s commands. But now the Israelites stopped obeying the Lord. 18 Many times the enemies of Israel hurt the Israelites. So the Israelites would cry for help. And each time the Lord felt sorry for them. Each time he sent a judge to save them from their enemies. The Lord was with those judges. 19 But when each judge died, the Israelites again sinned and worshiped the false gods. They became worse than their ancestors. The Israelites were very stubborn; they refused to change their evil ways.
20 So the Lord became angry with the Israelites. He said, “These people have broken the agreement I made with their ancestors. They have not listened to me. 21 So I will no longer defeat the nations who were left when Joshua died. 22 I will use those nations to test Israel. I will see if Israel keeps the Lord’s commands as their ancestors did.” 23 In the past the Lord had permitted those nations to stay in the land. He did not quickly force them out. He did not help Joshua’s army defeat them.
8 The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun. The sun was given power to burn the people with fire. 9 They were burned by the great heat, and they cursed the name of God. God is the One who had control over these troubles. But the people refused to change their hearts and lives and give glory to God.
10 The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. And darkness covered the beast’s kingdom. People bit their tongues because of the pain. 11 They cursed the God of heaven because of their pain and the sores they had. But they refused to change their hearts and turn away from the evil things they did.
12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates. The water in the river was dried up. This prepared the way for the kings from the east to come. 13 Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs. They came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 These evil spirits are the spirits of demons. They have power to do miracles. They go out to the kings of the whole world. They go out to gather the kings for battle on the great day of God All-Powerful.
15 “Listen! I will come as a thief comes! Happy is the person who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him. Then he will not have to go without clothes and be ashamed because he is naked.”
16 Then the evil spirits gathered the kings together to the place that is called Armageddon[a] in the Hebrew language.
17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air. Then a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne. The voice said, “It is finished!” 18 Then there were flashes of lightning, noises, thunder, and a big earthquake. This was the worst earthquake that has ever happened since people have been on earth. 19 The great city split into three parts. The cities of the nations were destroyed. And God did not forget to punish Babylon the Great. He gave that city the cup filled with the wine of his terrible anger. 20 Every island disappeared, and there were no more mountains. 21 Giant hailstones fell on people from the sky. The hailstones weighed about 100 pounds each. People cursed God because of the hail. This trouble was a terrible thing.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.