Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 10
Break the Arm of the Wicked Man
An Opening Appeal for Action
1 Why, Lord, do you stand so far away?
Why do you hide in times of distress?
A Portrait of the Wicked
2 Because of the pride of the wicked, the oppressed burn.[a]
They are caught in the schemes that the wicked plan.
3 Yes, the wicked man boasts about his heart’s desires.
He blesses the robber. He despises the Lord.[b]
4 With his nose in the air, the wicked does not seek God.
There is no room at all for God in his thoughts.
5 His ways are prosperous all the time.
He is haughty. Your judgments do not concern him.
He snorts at all of his foes.
6 He says in his heart, “I will not be shaken.
Through age after age I will have no trouble.”
7 Cursing fills his mouth, along with lies and threats.
Trouble and evil lie under his tongue.
8 He waits in ambush by the villages.
In hidden places he murders the innocent.
His eyes are spying on the helpless.
9 He lies in ambush. He hides like a lion in a thicket.
He lies in ambush to catch the oppressed.
He catches the oppressed by dragging them in his net.
10 The helpless are crushed. They sink down.
They fall under his strength.
11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten.
He hides his face. He never sees.”
An Appeal for Divine Justice
12 Rise up, O Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the oppressed.
13 Why does the wicked man despise God?
Why does he say in his heart,
“You do not seek justice”?
14 But you do see. You notice trouble and grief.
You take it into your own hands.
The helpless one abandons himself to you.
For the fatherless you are indeed a helper.
15 Break the arm of the wicked.
You pursue the wickedness of the evil man
until you find no more.[c]
Confidence in Divine Justice
16 The Lord is King forever and ever.
The nations will perish from his land.
17 Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted.
You strengthen their hearts,
and your ear pays attention,
18 to obtain justice for the fatherless and the crushed,
so that the worldly man[d] may no longer terrify.
Your False Religion Is Useless
7 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.
2 Stand in the gate of the House of the Lord and proclaim this message there.
Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who are coming through this gate to worship the Lord. 3 This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.
Reform your ways and your actions, and I will establish you in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”
5 Sincerely reform your ways and your actions. Carry out justice between a man and his neighbor. 6 Do not oppress the alien who lives in your land, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place. Do not follow after other gods to your own harm. If you avoid these things, 7 I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your fathers forever and ever.
8 Take warning. You are trusting in deceptive words that cannot help you.
9 Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and swear falsely? Will you offer sacrifices to Baal and follow other gods you do not know? 10 Will you come and stand before me in this temple that bears my Name, and say, “We are safe,” the whole time you do all these detestable things? 11 This house bears my Name! Have you made it a den of robbers? Watch out! I myself have been watching, declares the Lord.
Heed the Warning of Shiloh
12 Go to my place in Shiloh, where I first made a dwelling place for my Name. See what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.
13 You have done all these things, declares the Lord. Even though I spoke to you again and again, you did not listen. I called you, but you did not answer. 14 Because of this, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name—the place in which you trust, the place I gave to you and to your fathers. 15 I will drive you out of my sight just as I drove away all of your brothers, the people of Ephraim.
Do Not Harden Your Hearts
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts
as in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness.
9 Your fathers tested and tried me,
even though they saw my works 10 for forty years.
That is why I was angry with that generation
and said, “In their heart they are always going astray,
and they did not learn my ways.”
11 So I swore an oath in my wrath,
“They will never enter my rest.”[a]
12 Watch out, brothers, so that there is not an evil, unbelieving heart in any of you that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become people who share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firmly until the end. 15 As it is said:
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.[b]
16 Who was it who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who left Egypt, led by Moses? 17 And with whom was God angry for forty years? Surely it was with the ones who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness, wasn’t it? 18 And about whom did he swear an oath that they would not enter his rest, if it wasn’t concerning those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.
Some Will Enter God’s Rest
4 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be fearful that any one of you may be judged to have failed to reach it. 2 In fact, we have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did. But the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united in faith with those who did listen. 3 Indeed, we who believe are going to enter his rest.
It happened just as he vowed when he said:
So I swore an oath in my wrath,
“They will never enter my rest.”[c]
And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way:
And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.[d]
5 And again in this statement:
They will never enter my rest.[e]
6 Therefore, since it is still the case that some do enter this rest, and yet those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not enter because of disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, namely, “today,” when he later said through David, as quoted before:
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.[f]
8 For, if Joshua had given them rest, then God would not have spoken later about another day.
9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God rested from his work. 11 Therefore, let us make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.