Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 74
The Destruction of the Temple
Heading
A maskil[a] by Asaph.
Introductory Plea
1 Why do you stay angry to the end, O God?
Why does your anger smoke against the flock in your pasture?
2 Remember your community that you purchased long ago,
the tribe that you redeemed to be your possession.
Remember Mount Zion where you dwell.
3 March toward the perpetual ruins.
March against all the evil done by the enemy in the sanctuary.
The Destruction
4 Your foes roared in the middle of your appointed place.
They set up their battle standards as signs.
5 They looked like men swinging axes in a thicket of trees.
6 Yes, they even chopped up all the carved paneling
with their hatchets and hammers.
7 They delivered your sanctuary to the fire.
They defiled the dwelling place for your Name
by throwing it to the ground.
8 They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely!”
They burned all the appointed places of God in the land.
Deserted?
9 We do not see any signs to guide us.
There is no longer a prophet,
and none of us knows how long this will go on.
10 How long will the foe scoff, O God?
Will the enemy insult your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand, even your right hand?
Take it out of your pocket[b] and finish them off!
God’s Past Goodness
12 But you, O God, are my king from long ago,
the one who works salvation right here on earth.
13 It was you who shattered the sea by your power.
You broke the heads of the great sea monsters.
14 It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan.[c]
You gave him as food to the people who live in the desert.
15 It was you who opened up a spring and a seasonal stream.
You dried up the rivers that flow year-round.
16 The day belongs to you, and the night is also yours.
You set the moon and sun in place.
17 It was you who laid out all the boundaries of the earth.
Summer and winter—you shaped them.
Plea for Relief
18 Remember this—the enemy scoffs, Lord,
and a foolish people has insulted your name.
19 Do not surrender the life of your turtledove to a wild animal.
Do not forget the life of your afflicted ones forever.
20 Pay attention to the covenant,
because dens of violence fill the dark places in the land.
21 Do not let the oppressed turn back in disgrace.
Let the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Rise up, O God, and prosecute your case.
Remember how the fools mocked you all day long.
23 Do not forget the sound of your foes,
the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually.
The Lord Will Deliver Israel
27 On that day, the Lord will draw his sharp, great, and powerful sword, and he will kill Leviathan,[a] the slithering serpent—Leviathan, the coiling serpent. The Lord will kill the monster[b] in the sea.
2 On that day, sing about a delightful vineyard![c]
3 I, the Lord, am serving as its caretaker.
I water it constantly.
So that nothing will damage it,
I guard it night and day.
4 I am not angry,
but if I do find briers and thorns there,
I will fight them!
I will charge against them and set them all on fire.
5 To prevent this, let them turn to me for protection
and make peace with me.
Let them make peace with me![d]
6 In days to come,
Jacob will take root.
Israel will blossom and bud.
It will fill the whole world with fruit.
7 Has he struck Israel the way he struck those who struck them?
Have they been killed the same way those who killed them were killed?
8 When you drive them away[e] and send them into exile,
you make your case against them.
He drives them out with his violent storm,
as on a day when the hot east wind blows.
9 In this way the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,
and this will be all the fruit that results from taking away his sin.
He will make all the altar stones like chalk that has been crushed,
and no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.
10 Then the fortified city will be all alone,
a dwelling place, deserted and forsaken, like a wilderness.
Calves will graze there.
They will lie down there and eat all the leaves off the branches.
11 When its twigs are dried up, they are broken off.
Women will come and build a fire with them.
Because they are a people who have no understanding,
therefore their Maker will have no compassion on them.
He who formed them will not be gracious to them.
12 On that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing river, the Euphrates, to the Stream of Egypt,[f] and you Israelites will be gathered one by one. 13 On that day there will be a very loud blast on a ram’s horn, and those who were about to perish in the land of Assyria, together with those who were scattered in the land of Egypt, will come. They will worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Jesus Cleanses His Father’s House
45 Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were selling[a] things there. 46 He told them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer,’[b] but you have made it a ‘den of robbers’!”[c]
47 Every day he was teaching in the temple courts, but the chief priests, the experts in the law, and the leaders of the people continued to look for a way to put him to death. 48 They could not find any way to do it, because all the people were clinging to him and listening.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.