Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

79 O God, the heathen have come into Your inheritance. They have defiled Your Holy Temple and made Jerusalem heaps of stones.

² The dead bodies of Your servants they have given to be food to birds of the heaven, and the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the Earth.

³ They have shed their blood like waters, all around Jerusalem; and there was no one to bury them.

⁴ We are a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those around us.

⁵ LORD, how long will You be angry? Forever? Shall Your jealousy burn like fire?

⁶ Pour out Your wrath upon the heathen who have not known You, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon Your Name.

⁷ For they have devoured Jacob and made His dwelling place desolate.

⁸ Do not remember our former iniquities against us, but let Your tender mercies come quickly to meet us; for we are in great misery.

⁹ Help us, O God of Our Salvation, for the Glory of Your Name; and deliver us and be merciful to our sins for Your Name’s sake.

¹⁴ Thus says the LORD: “Against all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit, behold, I will pluck them out of their land and pluck out the House of Judah from among them.

¹⁵ “And after I have plucked them out, I will return and have compassion on them, and will bring back every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.

¹⁶ “And if they will learn the ways of My people, to swear by My Name, ‘The LORD lives’ (as they taught My people to swear by Baal), then they shall be built in the midst of My people.

¹⁷ “But if they will not obey, then will I utterly pluck up and destroy that nation,” says the LORD.

13 Thus says the LORD to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen girdle, and put it upon your loins. And do not put it in water.”

² So I bought the girdle, according to the Commandment of the LORD, and put it upon my loins.

³ And the Word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying,

⁴ “Take the girdle that you have bought, which is upon your loins. And arise, go toward Perath, and hide it there in the cleft of the rock.”

⁵ So I went and hid it by Perath, as the LORD had Commanded me.

⁶ And after many days, the LORD said to me, “Arise, go toward Perath, and take the girdle from there, which I Commanded you to hide there.”

⁷ Then I went to Perath and dug and took the girdle from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the girdle was ruined, profitable for nothing.

⁸ Then the Word of the LORD came to me, saying,

⁹ “Thus says the LORD: After this manner I will destroy the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.

¹⁰ “This wicked people has refused to hear My Word, and walk after the stubbornness of their own heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them and to worship them. Therefore they shall be as this girdle, which is profitable to nothing.

¹¹ “For as the girdle clings to the loins of a man, so have I tied to Myself the whole House of Israel, and the whole House of Judah,” says the LORD, “so that they might be My people, so that they might have a name and praise and glory. But they would not hear.

3 What, then, is the advantage of the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?

² Much in every way! Firstly, because indeed the oracles of God were entrusted to them.

³ For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

⁴ Absolutely not! Indeed, let God be true, and every man a liar! As it is written, “That you might be justified in your words, and overcome when you are judged.”

⁵ Now, if our unrighteousness exhibits the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous in punishing? (I speak as a man.)

⁶ Absolutely not! Or else, how shall God judge the world?

⁷ For if the truth of God has abounded more through my lie, unto His Glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?

⁸ Rather, why not say (as we are slanderously accused of saying, and as some affirm that we say) “Let us do evil, that good may come?” Their damnation is just.