Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
71 In You, O LORD, I trust. Let me never be ashamed.
2 Rescue me and deliver me in Your righteousness. Incline Your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my Strong Rock, whereto I may always resort. You have given Commandment to save me; for You are my Rock, and my Fortress.
4 Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the evil and cruel man.
5 For You are my Hope, O LORD God; my Trust from my youth.
6 I have been upheld by You from the womb. You are He Who took me out of my mother’s core. My praise shall be of You always.
6 “O you children of Benjamin, prepare to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa! Set up a standard upon Beth-Haccerem! For a plague appears out of the North, and great destruction!
2 “I have compared the Daughter of Zion to a beautiful and delicate woman.
3 “The shepherds, with their flocks, shall come to her. They shall pitch tents all around her, and everyone shall feed in his place.”
4 “Prepare for war against her! Arise, and let us go up toward the South. Woe to us! For the day declines, and the shadows of the evening are stretched out.
5 “Arise, and let us go up by night and destroy her palaces!”
6 For thus has the LORD of Hosts said: “Cut down wood and lay down a mound against Jerusalem! This city must be visited! All oppression is in the midst of it!
7 “As the fountain throws forth her waters, so she throws forth her malice! Cruelty and spoil are continually heard in her before Me, with sorrow and strokes.
8 “Be instructed, O [h]Jerusalem, lest My Soul departs from you, lest I make you desolate, a land that no one inhabits!”
9 Thus says the LORD of Hosts: “They shall gather, the residue of Israel, as a vine. Return your hand into the baskets, as does the grape gatherer.”
10 To whom shall I speak, and admonish, so that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot listen. Behold, the Word of the LORD is as a reproach to them. They have no delight in it.
11 Therefore, I am full of the wrath of the LORD. I am weary with holding it. “I will pour it out upon the children in the street, and likewise upon the assembly of the young men. For the husband shall be taken with the wife, the aged with him who is full of days,
12 “and their houses with their lands. And wives, also, shall be turned to strangers. For I will stretch out My Hand upon the inhabitants of the land,” says the LORD.
13 “For from the least of them to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness, and from the Prophet to the Priest, they all deal falsely.
14 “They have also slightly healed the hurt of My people, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.
15 “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not ashamed. Nor could they have any shame. Therefore, they shall fall among the slain when I shall visit them. They shall be cast down,” says the LORD.
16 Thus says the LORD: “Stand in the ways and behold. And ask for the old way, which is the good way. And walk in it. And you shall find rest for your souls.’ But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
17 “Also, I set watchmen over you, who said, ‘Listen for the sound of the trumpet.’ But they said, ‘We will not listen for it.’
18 “Hear, therefore, you Gentiles. And know, you Congregation, what is among them.
19 “Hear, O Earth! Behold, I will cause a plague to come upon this people, the fruit of their own imaginations. Because they have not listened to My Words, nor to My Law, but cast it off.
3 Therefore, consider Him Who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 In striving against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of bloodshed.
5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to children, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by Him.
6 “For whom the Lord loves, he chastens. And He scourges every son that He receives.”
7 If you endure chastening, God offered Himself to you as to sons. For what son is it whom the Father does not chasten?
8 Therefore, if you are without correction - of which all are partakers - then you are bastards, and not sons.
9 Moreover, we have had the fathers of our bodies who corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Should we not be in all the more subjection to the Father of Spirits, in order that we might live?
10 For indeed they chastened us for a few days, as it pleased them. But He chastened us for our profit, so that we might be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now, no chastising seems joyous at the time, but grievous. Yet afterward, it brings the quiet fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
12 Therefore, lift up your hands which hang down, and your weak knees,
13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that which is halting is not turned out of the way. But rather, let it be healed.
14 Pursue peace and holiness with all, without which no one shall see the Lord.
15 Watch carefully, so no one falls away from the grace of God. Let no root of bitterness spring up and trouble you, lest many be defiled by it.
16 Let there be no fornicator or profane person (such as Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal).
17 For you also know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place for repentance, though he sought that blessing with tears.
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