Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
49-50 Never forget your promises to me your servant, for they are my only hope. They give me strength in all my troubles; how they refresh and revive me! 51 Proud men hold me in contempt for obedience to God, but I stand unmoved. 52 From my earliest youth I have tried to obey you; your Word has been my comfort.
53 I am very angry with those who spurn your commands. 54 For these laws of yours have been my source of joy and singing through all these years of my earthly pilgrimage. 55 I obey them even at night and keep my thoughts, O Lord, on you. 56 What a blessing this has been to me—to constantly obey.
36 Now therefore the Lord God of Israel says concerning this city that it will fall to the king of Babylon through warfare, famine, and disease, 37 but I will bring my people back again from all the countries where in my fury I will scatter them. I will bring them back to this very city and make them live in peace and safety. 38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 And I will give them one heart and mind to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants.
40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, promising never again to desert them but only to do them good. I will put a desire into their hearts to worship me, and they shall never leave me. 41 I will rejoice to do them good and will replant them in this land with great joy. 42 Just as I have sent all these terrors and evils upon them, so will I do all the good I have promised them.
43 Fields will again be bought and sold in this land now ravaged by the Babylonians, where men and animals alike have disappeared. 44 Yes, fields shall once again be bought and sold—deeds signed and sealed and witnessed—in the country of Benjamin and here in Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah and in the hill country, in the Philistine Plain and in the Negeb too, for some day I will restore prosperity to them.
5 Look here, you rich men, now is the time to cry and groan with anguished grief because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. 2 Your wealth is even now rotting away, and your fine clothes are becoming mere moth-eaten rags. 3 The value of your gold and silver is dropping fast, yet it will stand as evidence against you and eat your flesh like fire. That is what you have stored up for yourselves to receive on that coming day of judgment. 4 For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. Their cries have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.
5 You have spent your years here on earth having fun, satisfying your every whim, and now your fat hearts are ready for the slaughter. 6 You have condemned and killed good men who had no power to defend themselves against you.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.