Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Messiah’s Willing Sacrifice
6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire.
Ears you have opened for me.[a]
You did not ask for burnt offerings and sin offerings.
7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come.
The book written on a scroll tells about me.
8 My God, I take pleasure in doing your will.
Your law[b] is in my heart.”
Messiah’s Preaching of Good News
9 I preach righteousness in the great assembly.
Indeed, I do not hold back my lips, O Lord, as you know.
10 I do not conceal your righteousness deep in my heart.
I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.
I do not hide your mercy and your truth from the great assembly.
Messiah’s Prayer in Distress
11 Lord, you do not hold back your compassion from me.
Let your mercy and your truth always protect me,
12 although troubles without number surround me.
Punishments for my guilt have smothered me, so I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head, so my courage deserts me.
13 Be pleased, O Lord, to save me.
Lord, hurry to help me.
14 Let all who seek to end my life be frustrated and completely confused.[c]
Let everyone who desires my ruin be turned back and disgraced.
15 Let those who say to me, “Aha! We got you!” be dismayed,
because they have been put to shame.
16 But let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation always say,
“The Lord is great!”
17 Yet I am poor and needy.
May the Lord think about me.
You are my help and my deliverer.
O my God, do not delay.
12 Listen to me, Jacob.
Listen to me, Israel, whom I called.
I am he. I am the first.
I am also the last.
13 It was my hand that laid the foundation of the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens.
I summon them and they stand together.
14 Gather together, all of you, and listen.
Who among them announced these things?
The Lord’s Servant Cyrus
The Lord loves him.
He will carry out his desire against Babylon,
and his arm is against Chaldea.
15 I, yes I, have spoken. I am the one who called him.
I have brought him, and his mission will succeed.
16 Come close to me and hear this.
From the beginning, I have not spoken in secret.
From the time it first existed, I was there.
And now God the Lord has sent me with his Spirit.
17 This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you how to succeed,
who leads you in the way you should walk.
18 If only you would have listened carefully to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
19 Your descendants[a] would have been like sand,
and the children from your body like grains of sand.
Their name would never have been cut off or destroyed
from my presence.
20 Get out of Babylon. Flee from Chaldea.
With a joyful voice declare and announce this.
Send it out to the end of the earth.
Say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.”
21 They did not suffer thirst in the desolate places
through which he led them.
He made water flow for them from a rock.
He split open a rock, and water gushed out.
A Question About Fasting
14 Then John’s disciples came to him and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast at all?”
15 Jesus said to them, “Can the attendants of the bridegroom mourn while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, because the patch would tear away from the garment, and the hole would be made even worse. 17 And people do not pour new wine into old wineskins. If they did, the skins would burst, the wine would be spilled, and the skins would be ruined. Instead they pour new wine into fresh wineskins. By doing that, both are preserved.”
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.