Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

38 O Lord, don’t punish me while you are angry! ² Your arrows have struck deep; your blows are crushing me. ^3-4 Because of your anger, my body is sick, my health is broken beneath my sins. They are like a flood, higher than my head; they are a burden too heavy to bear. ^5-6 My wounds are festering and full of pus. Because of my sins, I am bent and racked with pain. My days are filled with anguish. ⁷ My loins burn with inflammation,^[a] and my whole body is diseased. ⁸ I am exhausted and crushed; I groan in despair.^[b]

⁹ Lord, you know how I long for my health once more. You hear my every sigh. ¹⁰ My heart beats wildly, my strength fails, and I am going blind. ¹¹ My loved ones and friends stay away, fearing my disease. Even my own family stands at a distance.

¹² Meanwhile my enemies are trying to kill me. They plot my ruin and spend all their waking hours planning treachery. ^13-14 But I am deaf to all their threats; I am silent before them as a man who cannot speak. I have nothing to say. ¹⁵ For I am waiting for you, O Lord my God. Come and protect me. ¹⁶ Put an end to their arrogance, these who gloat when I am cast down!

¹⁷ How constantly I find myself upon the verge of sin;^[c] this source of sorrow always stares me in the face. ¹⁸ I confess my sins; I am sorry for what I have done. ¹⁹ But my enemies persecute with vigor and continue to hate me—though I have done nothing against them to deserve it. ²⁰ They repay me evil for good and hate me for standing for the right.

²¹ Don’t leave me, Lord; don’t go away! ²² Come quickly! Help me, O my Savior.

5 O Lord, remember all that has befallen us; see what sorrows we must bear! ² Our homes, our nation, now are filled with foreigners. ³ We are orphans—our fathers dead, our mothers widowed. ⁴ We must even pay for water to drink; our fuel is sold to us at the highest of prices. ⁵ We bow our necks beneath the victors’ feet; unending work is now our lot. ⁶ We beg for bread from Egypt, and Assyria too.

⁷ Our fathers sinned but died before the hand of judgment fell. We have borne the blow that they deserved!

⁸ Our former servants have become our masters; there is no one left to save us. ⁹ We went into the wilderness to hunt for food, risking death from enemies. ¹⁰ Our skin was black from famine. ¹¹ They rape the women of Jerusalem and the girls in Judah’s cities. ¹² Our princes are hanged by their thumbs. Even aged men are treated with contempt. ¹³ They take away the young men to grind their grain, and the little children stagger beneath their heavy loads.

¹⁴ The old men sit no longer in the city gates; the young no longer dance and sing. ¹⁵ The joy of our hearts has ended; our dance has turned to death.^{[a] 16} Our glory is gone. The crown is fallen from our head. Woe upon us for our sins. ¹⁷ Our hearts are faint and weary; our eyes grow dim. ¹⁸ Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord are desolate, deserted by all but wild animals lurking in the ruins.

¹⁹ O Lord, forever you remain the same! Your throne continues from generation to generation. ²⁰ Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so long? ²¹ Turn us around and bring us back to you again! That is our only hope! Give us back the joys we used to have! ²² Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?

¹⁹ Jesus replied, “The Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing, and in the same way. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son, and tells him everything he is doing; and the Son will do far more awesome miracles than this man’s healing. ²¹ He will even raise from the dead anyone he wants to, just as the Father does. ²² And the Father leaves all judgment of sin to his Son, ²³ so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. But if you refuse to honor God’s Son, whom he sent to you, then you are certainly not honoring the Father.

²⁴ “I say emphatically that anyone who listens to my message and believes in God who sent me has eternal life, and will never be damned for his sins, but has already passed out of death into life.

²⁵ “And I solemnly declare that the time is coming, in fact, it is here, when the dead shall hear my voice—the voice of the Son of God—and those who listen shall live. ²⁶ The Father has life in himself, and has granted his Son to have life in himself, ²⁷ and to judge the sins of all mankind because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸ Don’t be so surprised! Indeed the time is coming when all the dead in their graves shall hear the voice of God’s Son, ²⁹ and shall rise again—those who have done good, to eternal life; and those who have continued in evil, to judgment.