Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁹ Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me! ²⁰ For I can never forget these awful years; always my soul will live in utter shame.

²¹ Yet there is one ray of hope: ²² his compassion never ends. It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction. ²³ Great is his faithfulness; his loving-kindness begins afresh each day. ²⁴ My soul claims the Lord as my inheritance; therefore I will hope in him. ²⁵ The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him, to those who seek for him. ²⁶ It is good both to hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

52 (Events told about in chapter 39.)

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal (daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah). ² But he was a wicked king, just as Jehoiakim had been. ³ Things became so bad at last that the Lord, in his anger, saw to it that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon until he and the people of Israel were ejected from the Lord’s presence in Jerusalem and Judah, and were taken away as captives to Babylon.

⁴ In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came with all his army against Jerusalem and built forts around it, ⁵ and laid siege to the city for two years. ⁶ Then finally, on the ninth day of the fourth month, when the famine in the city was very serious, with the last of the food entirely gone, ⁷ the people in the city tore a hole in the city wall and all the soldiers fled from the city during the night, going out by the gate between the two walls near the king’s gardens (for the city was surrounded by the Chaldeans), and made a dash for it across the fields, toward Arabah.

⁸ But the Chaldean soldiers chased them and caught King Zedekiah in some fields near Jericho—for all his army was scattered from him. ⁹ They brought him to the king of Babylon who was staying in the city of Riblah in the kingdom of Hamath, and there judgment was passed upon him. ¹⁰ He made Zedekiah watch while his sons and all the princes of Judah were killed before his eyes. ¹¹ Then his eyes were gouged out, and he was taken in chains to Babylon and put in prison for the rest of his life.

⁸ “To the leader of the church in Smyrna write this letter:

“This message is from him who is the First and Last, who was dead and then came back to life.

⁹ “I know how much you suffer for the Lord, and I know all about your poverty (but you have heavenly riches!). I know the slander of those opposing you, who say that they are Jews—the children of God—but they aren’t, for they support the cause of Satan. ¹⁰ Stop being afraid of what you are about to suffer—for the devil will soon throw some of you into prison to test you. You will be persecuted for ‘ten days.’ Remain faithful even when facing death and I will give you the crown of life—an unending, glorious future.^{[a] 11} Let everyone who can hear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: He who is victorious shall not be hurt by the Second Death.