Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 22[a]
Suffering and Triumph of the Messiah
1 For the director.[b] According to “The Deer of the Dawn.” A psalm of David.
2 [c]My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why have you paid no heed to my call for help,
to my cries of anguish?
3 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I am afforded no relief.[d]
4 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.
5 Our ancestors placed their trust in you;
they trusted, and you gave them deliverance.
6 They cried out to you and were saved,
they trusted in you and were not put to shame.
7 But I am a worm and not human,[e]
scorned by people and despised by my kinsmen.
8 All who see me jeer at me;
they sneer in mockery and toss their heads:[f]
9 “He relied on the Lord;
let the Lord set him free.
Let the Lord deliver him,
if he loves him.”[g]
10 [h]Yet you brought me out of the womb
and made me feel secure
upon my mother’s breast.
11 I was entrusted to your care at my birth;
from my mother’s womb, you have been my God.
12 Do not remain aloof from me,
for trouble is near
and no one can help me.
13 [i]Many bulls[j] are encircling me;
fierce bulls of Bashan are closing in on me.
14 They open wide their mouths against me
like ravening and roaring lions.
15 My strength is trickling away like water,
and all my bones are dislocated.
My heart[k] has turned to wax
and melts within me.
Chapter 17
Where Then Will My Hope Be?[a]
1 “My spirit is broken,
my days are numbered,
and the grave is ready to receive me.
2 I am surrounded by mockers who taunt me,
and my eyes dwell on their hostility.
3 “I call upon you to be a witness on my behalf,
for there is no one else to whom I can turn.
4 You have closed the minds of others to reason,
but surely you will not allow them to triumph.
5 “Like a man who invites others to dine with him,
while the eyes of his children are failing,[b]
6 I have become a byword in every land,
someone people spit upon.
7 My eyes have become increasingly blinded with grief,
and all my members have been reduced to a shadow.
8 [c]The righteous are appalled at this,
and the innocent are indignant at the wicked.
9 The upright continue to adhere to a righteous path,
and those whose hands are pure will grow stronger.
10 “Even so, come forward, all of you, and continue your attack.
I will not find even one man among you who is wise.
11 My days have passed and my plans are foiled;
the strings of my heart have been severed.
12 My enemies would have me believe that night is day
and that the light will soon eradicate the darkness.
13 “If I foresee the netherworld as my dwelling,
if I spread out my bed in the darkness,
14 if I call the grave my father
and the worm my mother or my sister,
15 where then will my hope be,
and who can foresee any happiness for me?
16 Will they accompany me to the netherworld?
Will we descend together into the dust?”
The “Today” of God.[a] 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 harden not your hearts as at the rebellion,
in the day of testing in the desert,
9 where your ancestors tried me and tested me
though they had seen what I could do 10 for forty years.
As a result I became angered with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts have always gone astray,
and they do not know my ways.’
11 Therefore, I swore in my anger,
‘They will never enter into my rest.’ ”
12 Take care, brethren, that none of you will ever have an evil and unbelieving heart that will cause you to forsake the living God. 13 Rather, encourage each other every day, as long as it is today, so that none of you will become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we will become partners with Christ only if we maintain firmly until the end the confidence we originally had, 15 as it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts as at the rebellion.”
16 Who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Were they not all those whom Moses had led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angered for forty years? Was it not with those who had sinned and whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would never enter into his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see clearly that they were unable to enter because of their refusal to believe.
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