Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁶ But then Adonai raised up judges, who rescued them from the power of those who were plundering them. ¹⁷ Yet they did not pay attention to their judges, but made whores of themselves to other gods and worshipped them; they quickly turned away from the path on which their ancestors had walked, the way of obeying Adonai’s mitzvot — they failed to do this. ¹⁸ When Adonai raised up judges for them, Adonai was with the judge and delivered them from the hands of their enemies throughout the lifetime of the judge; for Adonai was moved to pity by their groaning under those oppressing and crushing them. ¹⁹ But after the judge died, they would relapse into worse behavior than that of their ancestors, following other gods to serve and worship them; they abandoned none of their practices or stubborn ways. ²⁰ So the anger of Adonai blazed against Isra’el; he said, “Because this nation violates my covenant, which I ordered their fathers to obey; and they don’t pay attention to what I say; ²¹ in the future, I will not expel ahead of them any of the nations that Y’hoshua left when he died. ²² This is how I will test Isra’el, to see whether or not they will keep the way of Adonai, living according to it, as their ancestors did.” ²³ So Adonai allowed those nations to remain where they were, without quickly driving them out; he did not hand them over to Y’hoshua.

⁸ The fourth one poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was permitted to burn people with fire. ⁹ People were burned by the intense heat; yet they cursed the name of God, who had the authority over these plagues, instead of turning from their sins to give him glory.

¹⁰ The fifth one poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom grew dark. People gnawed on their tongues from the pain, ¹¹ yet they cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, and did not turn from their sinful deeds.

¹² The sixth one poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water dried up, in order to prepare the way for the kings from the east. ¹³ And I saw three unclean spirits that looked like frogs; they came from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet. ¹⁴ They are miracle-working demonic spirits which go out to the kings of the whole inhabited world to assemble them for the War of the Great Day of Adonai-Tzva’ot. ¹⁵ (“Look! I am coming like a thief! How blessed are those who stay alert and keep their clothes clean, so that they won’t be walking naked and be publicly put to shame!”) ¹⁶ And they gathered the kings to the place which in Hebrew is called Har Megiddo.

¹⁷ The seventh one poured out his bowl on the air, and a loud voice came out of the Temple from the throne, saying, “It is done!” ¹⁸ There were flashes of lightning, voices and peals of thunder; and there was a massive earthquake, such as has never occurred since mankind has been on earth, so violent was the earthquake. ¹⁹ The great city was split into three parts, the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Bavel the Great and made her drink the wine from the cup of his raging fury. ²⁰ Every island fled, and no mountains were to be found. ²¹ And huge seventy-pound hailstones fell on people from the sky. But the people cursed God for the plague of hail, that it was such a terrible plague.