Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Hymn of Thanksgiving

12 A day is coming when people will sing,

⁴ A day is coming when people will sing,

The Prophet Condemns the People's Sins

59 Don't think that the Lord is too weak to save you or too deaf to hear your call for help! ² It is because of your sins that he doesn't hear you. It is your sins that separate you from God when you try to worship him. ³ You are guilty of lying, violence, and murder.

⁴ You go to court, but you do not have justice on your side. You depend on lies to win your case. You carry out your plans to hurt others. ^5-6 The evil plots you make are as deadly as the eggs of a poisonous snake. Crush an egg, out comes a snake! But your plots will do you no good—they are as useless as clothing made of cobwebs! ^7 (A)You are always planning something evil, and you can hardly wait to do it. You never hesitate to murder innocent people. You leave ruin and destruction wherever you go, ⁸ and no one is safe when you are around. Everything you do is unjust. You follow a crooked path, and no one who walks that path will ever be safe.

The People Confess Their Sin

⁹ The people say, “Now we know why God does not save us from those who oppress us. We hope for light to walk by, but there is only darkness, ¹⁰ and we grope about like blind people. We stumble at noon, as if it were night, as if we were in the dark world of the dead. ¹¹ We are frightened and distressed. We long for God to save us from oppression and wrong, but nothing happens.

¹² “Lord, our crimes against you are many. Our sins accuse us. We are well aware of them all. ¹³ We have rebelled against you, rejected you, and refused to follow you. We have oppressed others and turned away from you. Our thoughts are false; our words are lies. ¹⁴ Justice is driven away, and right cannot come near. Truth stumbles in the public square, and honesty finds no place there. ¹⁵ There is so little honesty that those who stop doing evil find themselves the victims of crime.”

The Lord Prepares to Rescue His People

The Lord has seen this, and he is displeased that there is no justice.

The Judgment at Christ's Coming

³ Our friends, we must thank God at all times for you. It is right for us to do so, because your faith is growing so much and the love each of you has for the others is becoming greater. ⁴ That is why we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God. We boast about the way you continue to endure and believe through all the persecutions and sufferings you are experiencing.

⁵ All of this proves that God's judgment is just and as a result you will become worthy of his Kingdom, for which you are suffering. ⁶ God will do what is right: he will bring suffering on those who make you suffer, ⁷ and he will give relief to you who suffer and to us as well. He will do this when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with his mighty angels, ⁸ with a flaming fire, to punish those who reject God and who do not obey the Good News about our Lord Jesus. ^9 (A)They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious might, ¹⁰ when he comes on that Day to receive glory from all his people and honor from all who believe. You too will be among them, because you have believed the message that we told you.

¹¹ That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of the life he has called you to live. May he fulfill by his power all your desire for goodness and complete your work of faith. ¹² In this way the name of our Lord Jesus will receive glory from you, and you from him, by the grace of our God and of the Lord^[a] Jesus Christ.