Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 22
Why Have You Forsaken Me?
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For the choir director. According to “Doe of the Dawn.”[a]
A psalm by David.
Part One: The Messiah’s Suffering
The Messiah’s Plea
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
My groaning does nothing to save me.
2 My God, I call out by day, but you do not answer.
I call out by night, but there is no relief for me.[b]
God’s Help in the Past
3 Yet you are seated as the Holy One, praised by Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted.
They trusted and you delivered them.
5 They cried out to you, and they were rescued.
They trusted in you, and they were not disappointed.
God’s Present Absence
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by men and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me. They sneer.
They shake their heads.
8 They say, “Trust in the Lord.”[c]
“Let the Lord deliver him.
Let him rescue him, if he delights in him.”[d]
The Mutual Love of Father and Son
9 But you are the one who brought me out of the belly.
You made me trust when I was at my mother’s breasts.
10 I was cast on you from the womb.
From the belly of my mother you have been my God.
11 Do not be distant from me, for distress is near,
and there is no one to help.
The Power of His Enemies
12 Many bulls surround me.
Strong bulls from Bashan encircle me.
13 Enemies open their mouths wide against me,
like a lion that tears its prey and roars.
14 Like water I am poured out.
All my bones are pulled apart.
My heart has become like wax.
It has melted in the middle of my chest.
15 My strength is dried up like broken pottery,
and my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth.
You lay me in the dust of death.
Round Two: Zophar’s Speech
20 Then Zophar the Na’amathite responded:
2 This is why my troubled thoughts make me respond again,
and why my thoughts are racing through my mind:
3 I heard a rebuke that insults me,
so my spirit prompts me to respond with understanding.
4 Don’t you know this?
From ancient times,
from the time when Adam[a] was placed on the earth,
5 the triumphant cry of the wicked has been short-lived,
and the joy of the godless lasts only a moment.
6 Although his arrogance reaches up to the skies,
and his head touches the clouds,
7 he will perish forever like his own filth.
Those who saw him will say, “Where is he?”
8 Like a dream, he flies away, and he cannot be found.
Like a vision during the night, he flutters away.
9 An eye catches sight of him, but it does not see him again.
His place will no longer look at him.
10 His children must make restitution to[b] the poor.
His hands must give back his wealth.
11 His bones were once filled with youthful vigor,
but that vigor will lie down with him in the dust.
12 If evil tastes sweet in his mouth,
and he tucks it under his tongue,
13 if he hoards it for himself,
and he does not let it go,
but savors it on his palate,
14 his food will turn into cobra venom in his stomach.
15 He swallowed wealth, but he vomits it up.
God makes him expel it from his belly.
16 He sucks the poison of cobras.
The fangs of a viper kill him.
17 He will not see the streams,
the rivers that flow with honey and cream.
18 Without digesting it, he gives up the produce for which he labored.
He does not enjoy the wealth for which he traded,
19 because he has crushed and abandoned the poor,
and he has stolen a house he did not build.
20 His stomach is never filled.
He cannot satisfy his desires,
21 because now there is nothing left for him to eat,
so his prosperity will not endure.
22 Even when he has plenty,
distress catches up with him,
and misery grabs hold of him.
23 While he is filling his belly,
God will send burning anger upon him,
and it will rain down on his body.[c]
24 He flees from iron weapons,
but he is pierced by a bronze arrow.
25 He pulls the arrow out of his back,
and the shiny point comes out of his liver.
Terrors come over him.
26 Complete darkness is lying in wait for his hidden treasures.
A fire that needs no fanning will consume him.
It will destroy anything that survives in his tent.
27 The heavens will uncover his guilt,
and the earth will rise up against him.
28 A flood will carry away his house,
sweeping away his possessions on the day of God’s wrath.
29 This is God’s sentence on the evil man.
This is his heritage decreed by God.
Commandments and Traditions
15 Then the Pharisees and experts in the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For example, God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’[a] and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of his father or mother should be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if someone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might have received from me has been dedicated as a gift to God,’[c] 6 that man does not need to honor his father or his mother.[d] And so you set aside the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 Hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
9 They worship me in vain, teaching human rules as if they are doctrines.”[e]
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.