Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 85
For the worship leader. A song of the sons of Korah.
1 O Eternal One, there was a time when You were gracious to Your land;
You returned Jacob’s descendants from their captivity.
2 You forgave the iniquity of Your people,
covered all of their sins.
[pause][a]
3 There was a time when You restrained all of Your fierce wrath,
when You cooled Your hot anger.
4 O God of our salvation, bring us back again—as You did before—
and put away Your anger toward us.
5 Will You be mad at us forever?
Will You continue to be angry with our children and theirs?
6 Will You not bring us back to life once more
so that we, Your people, will find joy and pleasure in You?
7 O Eternal One, show us Your unfailing love;
give us what we truly need: Your salvation.
8 I will hear what the True God—the Eternal—will say,
for He will speak peace over His people,
peace over those who faithfully follow Him, [but do not let them abuse His gift and return to foolish ways].[b]
9 Without a doubt, His salvation is near for those who revere Him
so that He will be with us again and all His glory will fill this land.
10 Unfailing love and truth have met on their way;
righteousness and peace have kissed one another.
11 Truth will spring from the earth like a plant,
and justice will look down from the sky.
12 Yes, the Eternal will plant goodness in the earth,
and our land will yield great abundance.
13 Justice will come before Him,
marking out a path, setting a way for His feet.
11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will return from exile and gather together as one nation again, and they’ll agree on only one leader for all of them. It will be a great day when they go up from the land and “Jezreel” is a reality.
Jezreel means “God sows [seed].” He will bring the people back to their land, and they’ll never be uprooted again.
2 Eternal One (to the future reunited people): Give your brothers a new name: My People;
and give your sisters a new name too: Shown Mercy.
2 I’m going to publicly charge your mother, Israel, with being unfaithful to Me.
But you must bring the accusation against her—you bring it—
Because she’s not My wife anymore and I’m not her husband.
Israel was unfaithful to God by worshiping the fertility gods of her neighbors and forging diplomatic and military alliances with these foreign nations.
Look at her! She must cease from her whoring ways,
even her adulteries from her breasts; she must remove her lovers.
3 If she doesn’t stop, I’ll take away all her clothes and jewels
and leave her as naked as the day she was born.
I’ll make her like the bare rocks and soil of the desert
where nothing grows because there’s no rain:
I’ll kill her with thirst.
4 When I divorce her, I won’t take care of her children
because they are children of wickedness, tainted by that very prostitution.
Whenever God’s children abandon proper worship of Him in favor of any earthly thing—be it worship of another god, dependence on themselves, or trust in foreign leaders—they break their covenant with Him. Breaking that promise is like committing adultery, which is literally the destruction of a marriage covenant. Here, God is furious with Israel because they have chosen to serve the gods of other nations in addition to Him; they are committing adultery against Him.
Under the rule of King Jeroboam II in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, worship of a Canaanite deity named Baal is common. Many people believe he is the god of weather and therefore the one who makes the earth fertile and produces crops. Like God, he is worshiped through the donation of gifts and sacrificing of animals, but Baal is also honored by the activities of prostitutes at shrines dedicated to him. The men and women who are employed at those shrines are paid for their fertility rituals by customers (worshipers) not only with money but also with the produce of the land their sexual activities supposedly fertilized: bread and water, wool and flax, oil and wine.
5 Their mother was a prostitute;
she brought shame on herself when she had these children.
She chased her customers, saying, “I’m going to go looking for my lovers.
They’re the ones who give me my bread and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and wine.”
6 But I’ll block her way with a thorn hedge;
I’ll put a wall up around her, blocking her usual paths,
7 and she will wander after her lovers like a dumb sheep.
She’ll chase after them, but she won’t catch them.
She’ll look for them, but she won’t find them.
Then she’ll say, “I’m going to go back to my original husband
because I was better off then than I am now!”
8 She didn’t know I was the One who gave her the grain and wine and oil—
not those fertility gods she was worshiping.
I made her rich with silver and gold,
but she devoted it to another divine master![a]
9 So when harvest time comes, I’ll take back My grain,
and when the grapes ripen, I’ll take back My wine.
I’ll take away the wool and flax I gave her to make clothes
so she wouldn’t be naked.
10 The land will be stripped bare,
and this unfaithful wife of Mine will be walking around
Embarrassingly naked in the sight of her lovers,
and none of them will be able to rescue her from Me.
11 So I’m going to end all of her celebrations
now that she uses them to honor other masters—
Her pilgrimage festivals, her new moon celebrations, her Sabbath feasts,
and all her other gatherings.
12 She says she’s entitled to her vines and fig trees
because they’re her wages from prostitution; they’re gifts from her lovers.
But I’m going to destroy them all. I’ll turn them into a tangle of brush,
and wild animals will eat up the fruit.
13 I swear that I’ll punish her for honoring other masters[b] on My special days,
even her burning incense to those false gods.
She got dressed up in her rings and jewelry;
she went after her lovers, and she forgot about Me.
14 But once she has nothing, I’ll be able to get through to her.
I’ll entice her and lead her out into the wilderness where we can be alone,
and I’ll speak right to her heart and try to win her back.
15 And then I’ll give her back her vineyards;
I’ll turn the valley of Achor, that “Valley of Trouble,”[c]
into a gateway of hope.
This is where Achan was judged for keeping forbidden spoils of war when Israel first entered into the land after the exodus.
In the wilderness of exile she’ll learn to respond to Me
the way she did when she was young, when I brought her out of Egypt.
22 Picture this:
One day Jesus and His disciples get into a boat.
Jesus: Let’s cross the lake.
So they push off from shore and begin sailing to the far side. 23 As they progress across the lake, Jesus falls sound asleep. Soon a raging storm blows in. The waves wash over the sides of the boat, and the boat starts filling up with water. Every second the situation becomes more dangerous.
24 The disciples shake Jesus and wake Him.
Disciples (shouting): Master! Master! We’re all going to die!
Jesus wakes up and tells the wind to stop whipping them around, and He tells the furious waves to calm down. They do just that. 25 Then Jesus turns to the disciples.
Jesus: What happened to your faith?
The disciples had been terrified during the storm, but now they’re afraid in another way. They turn to each other and start whispering, chattering, and wondering.
Disciples: Who is this man? How can He command wind and water so they do what He says?
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.