Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A Song of Praise to God
12 At that time you will say,
“I praise you, Lord!
You have been angry with me,
but don’t be angry with me now.
Show your love to me.
2 God is the one who saves me.
I trust him, and I am not afraid.
The Lord Yah is my strength.
He saves me, and I sing songs of praise about him.[a]”
3 You people will get your water from the spring of salvation.
Then you will be happy.
4 At that time you will say,
“Praise the Lord and call out his name!
Tell everyone what he has done
and how wonderful he is.”
5 Sing songs of praise about the Lord,
because he has done great things.
Spread this news about God throughout the whole world.
Let all people know these things.
6 People of Zion, shout about these things!
The Holy One of Israel is with you in a powerful way.
So sing and be happy!
Evil People Should Change Their Lives
59 Look, the Lord’s power is enough to save you. He can hear you when you ask him for help. 2 It is your sins that separate you from your God. He turns away from you when he sees them. 3 That’s because your hands are covered with blood from the people you murdered. You tell lies and say evil things. 4 You can’t be trusted, even in court. You lie about each other and depend on false arguments to win your cases. You create pain and produce wickedness. 5 You hatch evil, like eggs from a poisonous snake. Anyone who eats the eggs will die. And if you break one of them open, a poisonous snake will come out.
Your lies are like spider webs. 6 They cannot be used for clothes, and you cannot cover yourself with them.
Your hands are always busy sinning and hurting others. 7 Your feet run toward evil. You are always ready to kill innocent people. You think of nothing but evil. Everywhere you go you cause trouble and ruin. 8 You don’t know how to live in peace. You don’t do what is right and fair. You are crooked, and anyone who lives like that will never know true peace.
Israel’s Sin Brings Trouble
9 All fairness and goodness is gone.
There is only darkness around us,
so we must wait for the light.
We hope for a bright light,
but all we have is darkness.
10 We are like people without eyes.
We walk into walls like blind people.
We stumble and fall as if it was night.
Even in the daylight, we cannot see.
At noontime, we fall like dead men.
11 We are always complaining;
we growl like bears and moan like doves.
We are waiting for justice,
but there is none.
We are waiting to be saved,
but salvation is still far away.
12 That’s because we committed crimes against our God.
Our own sins speak out against us.
We know we are guilty.
We know we have sinned.
13 We rebelled against the Lord
and lied to him.
We turned away from our God
and left him.
We planned to hurt others
and to rebel against God.
From hearts filled with lies,
we talked about it and made our plans.
14 We pushed Justice away.
Fairness stands off in the distance.
Truth has fallen in the streets.
Goodness is not allowed in the city.
15 Loyalty is gone,
and people who try to do good are robbed.
The Lord looked and saw there was no justice.
He did not like what he saw.
3 We thank God for you always. And that’s what we should do, because you give us good reason to be thankful: Your faith is growing more and more. And the love that every one of you has for each other is also growing. 4 So we tell the other churches of God how proud we are of you. We tell them how you patiently continue to be strong and have faith, even though you are being persecuted and are suffering many troubles.
Paul Tells About God’s Judgment
5 This is proof that God is right in his judgment. He wants you to be worthy of his kingdom. Your suffering is for that kingdom. 6 God will do what is right. He will punish those who are causing you trouble. 7 And he will bring relief to you who are troubled. He will bring it to you and to us when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven for all to see, together with his powerful angels. 8 He will come with burning fire to punish those who don’t know God—those who refuse to accept the Good News about our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with a destruction that never ends. They will not be allowed to be with the Lord but will be kept away from his great power. 10 This will happen on the day when the Lord Jesus comes to receive honor with his holy people. He will be admired among all who have believed. And this includes you because you believed what we told you.
11 That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to help you live the good way he wanted when he chose you. The goodness you have makes you want to do good. And the faith you have makes you work. We pray that with his power God will help you do these things more and more. 12 Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of you, and you will be honored because of him. This can happen only by the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International