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.

¹² On the tenth day of the fifth month during the nineteenth year^[a] of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, arrived in Jerusalem, ¹³ and burned the Temple and the palace and all the larger homes, ¹⁴ and set the Chaldean army to work tearing down the walls of the city. ¹⁵ Then he took to Babylon, as captives, some of the poorest of the people—along with those who survived the city’s destruction, and those who had deserted Zedekiah and had come over to the Babylonian army, and the tradesmen who were left. ¹⁶ But he left some of the poorest people to care for the crops as vinedressers and plowmen.

¹⁷ The Babylonians dismantled the two large bronze pillars that stood at the entrance of the Temple, and the bronze laver and bronze bulls on which it stood, and carted them off to Babylon. ¹⁸ And he took along all the bronze pots and kettles, the ash shovels used at the altar, the snuffers, spoons, bowls, and all the other items used in the Temple. ¹⁹ He also took the firepans, the solid gold and silver candlesticks, and the cups and bowls.

²⁰ The weight of the two enormous pillars, the laver, and twelve bulls was tremendous. They had no way of estimating it. (They had been made in the days of King Solomon.) ²¹ For the pillars were each 27 feet high and 18 feet in circumference, hollow, with 3-inch walls. ²² The top 7-1/2 feet of each column had bronze carvings, a network of bronze pomegranates. ²³ There were 96 pomegranates on the sides, and on the network round about there were a hundred more.

^24-25 The captain of the guard took along with him as his prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah his assistant, the three chief Temple guards, one of the commanding officers of the army, seven of the king’s special counselors discovered in the city, the secretary of the general-in-chief of the Jewish army (who was in charge of recruitment), and sixty other men of importance found hiding. ²⁶ He took them to the king of Babylon at Riblah, ²⁷ where the king killed them all.

So it was that Judah’s exile was accomplished.

²⁸ The number of captives taken to Babylon in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign was 3,023. ²⁹ Then, eleven years later, he took 832 more; ³⁰ five years after that he sent Nebuzaradan, his captain of the guard, and took 745—a total of 4,600 captives in all.

¹² “Write this letter to the leader of the church in Pergamos:

“This message is from him who wields the sharp and double-bladed sword. ¹³ I am fully aware that you live in the city where Satan’s throne is, at the center of satanic worship; and yet you have remained loyal to me and refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you by Satan’s devotees.

¹⁴ “And yet I have a few things against you. You tolerate some among you who do as Balaam did when he taught Balak how to ruin the people of Israel by involving them in sexual sin and encouraging them to go to idol feasts. ¹⁵ Yes, you have some of these very same followers of Balaam^[a] among you!

¹⁶ “Change your mind and attitude, or else I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

¹⁷ “Let everyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: Everyone who is victorious shall eat of the hidden manna, the secret nourishment from heaven; and I will give to each a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one else knows except the one receiving it.

¹⁸ “Write this letter to the leader of the church in Thyatira:

“This is a message from the Son of God, whose eyes penetrate like flames of fire, whose feet are like glowing brass.

¹⁹ “I am aware of all your good deeds—your kindness to the poor, your gifts and service to them; also I know your love and faith and patience, and I can see your constant improvement in all these things.

²⁰ “Yet I have this against you: You are permitting that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach my servants that sex sin is not a serious matter; she urges them to practice immorality and to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols. ²¹ I gave her time to change her mind and attitude, but she refused. ²² Pay attention now to what I am saying: I will lay her upon a sickbed of intense affliction, along with all her immoral followers,^[b] unless they turn again to me, repenting of their sin with her; ²³ and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches deep within men’s hearts, and minds; I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.

^24-25 “As for the rest of you in Thyatira who have not followed this false teaching (‘deeper truths,’ as they call them—depths of Satan, really), I will ask nothing further of you; only hold tightly to what you have until I come.

²⁶ “To everyone who overcomes—who to the very end keeps on doing things that please me—I will give power over the nations. ²⁷ You will rule them with a rod of iron just as my Father gave me the authority to rule them; they will be shattered like a pot of clay that is broken into tiny pieces. ²⁸ And I will give you the Morning Star!

²⁹ “Let all who can hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.