Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

22 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why do you refuse to help me or even to listen to my groans? ² Day and night I keep on weeping, crying for your help, but there is no reply— ^3-4 for you are holy.

The praises of our fathers surrounded your throne; they trusted you and you delivered them. ⁵ You heard their cries for help and saved them; they were never disappointed when they sought your aid.

⁶ But I am a worm, not a man, scorned and despised by my own people and by all mankind. ⁷ Everyone who sees me mocks and sneers and shrugs. ⁸ “Is this the one who rolled his burden on the Lord?” they laugh. “Is this the one who claims the Lord delights in him? We’ll believe it when we see God rescue him!”

^9-11 Lord, how you have helped me before!^[a] You took me safely from my mother’s womb and brought me through the years of infancy. I have depended upon you since birth; you have always been my God. Don’t leave me now, for trouble is near and no one else can possibly help.

¹² I am surrounded by fearsome enemies, strong as the giant bulls from Bashan. ¹³ They come at me with open jaws, like roaring lions attacking their prey. ¹⁴ My strength has drained away like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart melts like wax; ¹⁵ my strength has dried up like sun-baked clay; my tongue sticks to my mouth, for you have laid me in the dust of death.

18 The further reply of Bildad the Shuhite:

² “Who are you trying to fool? Speak some sense if you want us to answer! ³ Have we become like animals to you, stupid and dumb? ⁴ Just because you tear your clothes in anger, is this going to start an earthquake? Shall we all go and hide?

⁵ “The truth remains that if you do not prosper, it is because you are wicked. And your bright flame shall be put out. ⁶ There will be darkness in every home where there is wickedness.

⁷ “The confident stride of the wicked man will be shortened; he will realize his failing strength. ^8-9 He walks into traps, and robbers will ambush him. ¹⁰ There is a booby trap in every path he takes. ¹¹ He has good cause for fear—his enemy is close behind him!

¹² “His vigor is depleted by hunger; calamity stands ready to pounce upon him. ¹³ His skin is eaten by disease. Death shall devour him. ¹⁴ The wealth he trusted in shall reject him, and he shall be brought down to the king of terrors. ¹⁵ His home shall disappear beneath a fiery barrage of brimstone. ¹⁶ He shall die from the roots up, and all his branches will be lopped off.

¹⁷ “All memory of his existence will perish from the earth; no one will remember him. ¹⁸ He will be driven out from the kingdom of light into darkness and chased out of the world. ¹⁹ He will have neither son nor grandson left, nor any other relatives. ²⁰ Old and young alike will be horrified by his fate. ²¹ Yes, that is what happens to sinners, to those rejecting God.”

4 Although God’s promise still stands—his promise that all may enter his place of rest—we ought to tremble with fear because some of you may be on the verge of failing to get there after all. ² For this wonderful news—the message that God wants to save us—has been given to us just as it was to those who lived in the time of Moses. But it didn’t do them any good because they didn’t believe it. They didn’t mix it with faith. ³ For only we who believe God can enter into his place of rest. He has said, “I have sworn in my anger that those who don’t believe me will never get in,” even though he has been ready and waiting for them since the world began.

⁴ We know he is ready and waiting because it is written that God rested on the seventh day of creation, having finished all that he had planned to make.

⁵ Even so they didn’t get in, for God finally said, “They shall never enter my rest.” ⁶ Yet the promise remains and some get in—but not those who had the first chance, for they disobeyed God and failed to enter.

⁷ But he has set another time for coming in, and that time is now. He announced this through King David long years after man’s first failure to enter, saying in the words already quoted, “Today when you hear him calling, do not harden your hearts against him.”

⁸ This new place of rest he is talking about does not mean the land of Israel that Joshua led them into. If that were what God meant, he would not have spoken long afterwards about “today” being the time to get in. ⁹ So there is a full complete rest still waiting for the people of God. ¹⁰ Christ has already entered there. He is resting from his work, just as God did after the creation. ¹¹ Let us do our best to go into that place of rest, too, being careful not to disobey God as the children of Israel did, thus failing to get in.