Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

50 The mighty God, the Lord, has summoned all mankind from east to west!

² God’s glory-light shines from the beautiful Temple^[a] on Mount Zion. ³ He comes with the noise of thunder,^[b] surrounded by devastating fire; a great storm rages round about him. ⁴ He has come to judge his people. To heaven and earth he shouts, ⁵ “Gather together my own people who by their sacrifice upon my altar have promised to obey me.”^{[c] 6} God will judge them with complete fairness, for all heaven declares that he is just.

14 Jeroboam’s son Abijah now became very sick. ² Jeroboam told his wife, “Disguise yourself so that no one will recognize you as the queen, and go to Ahijah the prophet at Shiloh—the man who told me that I would become king. ³ Take him a gift of ten loaves of bread, some fig bars, and a jar of honey, and ask him whether the boy will recover.”

⁴ So his wife went to Ahijah’s home at Shiloh. He was an old man now and could no longer see. ⁵ But the Lord told him that the queen, pretending to be someone else, would come to ask about her son, for he was very sick. And the Lord told him what to tell her.

⁶ So when Ahijah heard her at the door, he called out, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else?” Then he told her, “I have sad news for you. ⁷ Give your husband this message from the Lord God of Israel: ‘I promoted you from the ranks of the common people and made you king of Israel. ⁸ I ripped the kingdom away from the family of David and gave it to you, but you have not obeyed my commandments as my servant David did. His heart’s desire was always to obey me and to do whatever I wanted him to. ⁹ But you have done more evil than all the other kings before you; you have made other gods and have made me furious with your gold calves. And since you have refused to acknowledge me, ¹⁰ I will bring disaster upon your home and will destroy all of your sons—this boy who is sick and all those who are well.^[a] I will sweep away your family as a stable hand shovels out manure. ¹¹ I vow that those of your family who die in the city shall be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field shall be eaten by birds.’”

¹² Then Ahijah said to Jeroboam’s wife, “Go on home, and when you step into the city, the child will die. ¹³ All of Israel will mourn for him and bury him, but he is the only member of your family who will come to a quiet end. For this child is the only good thing that the Lord God of Israel sees in the entire family of Jeroboam. ¹⁴ And the Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy the family of Jeroboam. ¹⁵ Then the Lord will shake Israel like a reed whipped about in a stream; he will uproot the people of Israel from this good land of their fathers and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the Lord by worshiping idol-gods. ¹⁶ He will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and made all of Israel sin along with him.”

¹⁷ So Jeroboam’s wife returned to Tirzah; and the child died just as she walked through the door of her home. ¹⁸ And there was mourning for him throughout the land, just as the Lord had predicted through Ahijah.

¹² How thankful I am to Christ Jesus our Lord for choosing me as one of his messengers, and giving me the strength to be faithful to him, ¹³ even though I used to scoff at the name of Christ. I hunted down his people, harming them in every way I could. But God had mercy on me because I didn’t know what I was doing, for I didn’t know Christ at that time. ¹⁴ Oh, how kind our Lord was, for he showed me how to trust him and become full of the love of Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ How true it is, and how I long that everyone should know it, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I was the greatest of them all. ¹⁶ But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as an example to show everyone how patient he is with even the worst sinners, so that others will realize that they, too, can have everlasting life. ¹⁷ Glory and honor to God forever and ever. He is the King of the ages, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God, and full of wisdom. Amen.

¹⁸ Now, Timothy, my son, here is my command to you: Fight well in the Lord’s battles, just as the Lord told us through his prophets that you would. ¹⁹ Cling tightly to your faith in Christ and always keep your conscience clear, doing what you know is right. For some people have disobeyed their consciences and have deliberately done what they knew was wrong. It isn’t surprising that soon they lost their faith in Christ after defying God like that. ²⁰ Hymenaeus and Alexander are two examples of this. I had to give them over to Satan to punish them until they could learn not to bring shame to the name of Christ.