Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Zayin
49 Do not forget Your promise to Your servant;
through it You have given me hope.
50 This brings me solace in the midst of my troubles:
that Your word has revived me.
51 Those who are proud cruelly ridicule me,
but I keep to the steady path of Your teachings.
52 I have considered Your ancient rulings, O Eternal One,
and their memory brings me comfort.
53 Burning anger rises in me, has me in its grip
because the unrighteous abandon Your teachings.
54 As I journey through this life,
Your statutes are my song.
55 O Eternal One, through the night, I stop to recall Your name.
That’s how I live according to Your teachings.
56 This has become my practice:
to keep Your ordinances.
36 Jeremiah, listen to what the Eternal God of Israel has to say about Jerusalem: you say that by war, famine, and disease this city will fall to the king of Babylon, and you are right. 37 Look! I will gather My people from all the countries where I scattered them in My righteous anger, in My great wrath and fury. I will bring them back to this place, Jerusalem, and let them live here safely under My protection. 38 They will be My people, and I will be their God. 39 I will unite them behind a single desire and purpose: to revere and worship Me forever for their own good and for the good of all who will come after them. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop blessing them with good things, and I will put in them a fear and respect of Me so they will not turn their backs to Me again. 41 It will be My great joy to do good things for them, and you can be sure that I will devote Myself completely to planting them anew in this land.
42 This is what I, the Eternal, declare: Just as I brought this great disaster upon My people, so will I do all these good things I have promised to them. 43 Property will be bought and sold once again in this land about which you say, “This land is a wasteland—not fit for man or beast—for it has been handed over to the Chaldeans.” 44 Property will be bought and sold once again for silver—deals will be made and deeds signed in the presence of witnesses—in the territory of Benjamin, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in the villages of Judah and the hill country, in the villages of the western hills, and in the cities of the Negev. In all these places I will restore them from their exile.
So says the Eternal.
5 Hey, you rich folk, misery is on its way; so cry and moan 2 because you will watch your riches rot before your eyes as the moths devour your fine clothes. 3 Your stockpile of silver and gold is tarnished and corroded, and this rust will stand up in the final judgment and testify against you. It will eat your flesh like fire and become a permanent and painful reminder that you have hoarded your wealth through these last days. 4 Listen. You held back a just wage from the laborers who mowed your fields, and that money is crying out against you, demanding that justice be done. The cries of the people who harvested your crops and made you a profit have fallen upon the ears of the supreme Lord of heavenly armies. 5 Your life on the earth has been one of luxury, pleasure, and endless consumption; you have feasted to your hearts’ content on animals you slaughtered, but now the day of slaughter comes for you. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous man, and he did not defend himself.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.