Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 81
If Only
Heading
For the choir director. According to gittith.[a] By Asaph.
Invitation to Worship
1 Sing a loud song to God, our strength.
Shout to the God of Jacob!
2 Begin the music, and play the hand drum.
Play the sweet-sounding lyre along with the harp.
3 Sound the ram’s horn at the new moon
and at the full moon for our festival day.
4 Yes, this is an order for Israel,
a regulation from the God of Jacob.
5 God established it as a testimony for Joseph
when he went out against the land of Egypt.
There I heard a language I did not know.[b]
A Warning From the Lord
6 The Lord says:
I relieved Israel’s shoulders from the burden.
His hands were set free from carrying buckets.
7 In distress you called and I rescued you.
I answered you from the hiding place of thunder. Interlude
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
8 Listen, my people, and I will warn you.
If only you would listen to me, Israel!
9 There shall be no foreign god among you!
You shall not bow down to a strange god.
10 I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 But my people would not listen to my voice,
and Israel was not willing to obey me.
12 So I sent them off in the stubbornness of their hearts.
They walked according to their own plans.
13 If only my people would listen to me,
if only Israel would walk in my ways,
14 I would subdue their enemies quickly.
I would turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the Lord would cower before him,
and their time of punishment would last forever.
16 But he would feed Israel with the best wheat.
With honey from the rock I would satisfy you.
4 Hear the word of the Lord, you house of Jacob.
All you families of the house of Israel,
5 this is what the Lord says.
What fault did your fathers find in me,
that they departed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols,
and so they became worthless themselves.
6 They did not say,
“Where is the Lord, who brought us up from the land of Egypt?
Where is the one who led us through the wilderness,
through a desert wasteland filled with ravines,
through a land of drought and the shadow of death,
a land which no one passes through,
a land where no human being lives?”
7 I brought you into a fertile land,
to eat its fruit and its good things.
But you defiled my land
and made my inheritance repulsive.
8 The priests did not ask, “Where is the Lord?”
The experts in the law did not acknowledge me.
Their shepherds rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal
and went after useless idols.
9 So I am bringing charges against you again, declares the Lord,
and I am bringing charges against your children’s children.
10 Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus[a] and look.
Send someone to Kedar[b] and observe carefully.
See if there has ever been anything like this.
11 Has a nation ever exchanged its gods
(even though they are not gods at all)?
Yet my people have exchanged their Glory[c]
for useless idols.
12 Be appalled at this, you heavens.
Be horrified and wither away completely, declares the Lord.
13 For my people have committed two evils:
They have abandoned me, the spring of living water,
and they have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that hold no water!
14 When the festival was already half over, Jesus went up to the temple courts and began to teach. 15 The Jews were amazed and asked, “How does this man know what is written without being instructed?”
16 Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but it comes from him who sent me. 17 If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether my teaching is from God or if I speak on my own. 18 The one who speaks on his own is seeking his own glory. But he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him—that is the one who is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 19 Didn’t Moses give you the law? Yet none of you does what the law tells you. Why are you trying to kill me?”
20 “You have a demon!” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”
21 Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you are all amazed. 22 Consider this: Because Moses has given you circumcision (not that it comes from Moses, but from the fathers), you circumcise a man even on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry at me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by outward appearance. Instead make a right judgment.”
25 Some of the people from Jerusalem were saying, “Isn’t this the man they want to kill? 26 Yet, look! He’s speaking openly, and they don’t say a thing to him. Certainly the rulers have not concluded that he is the Christ, have they? 27 But we know where this man is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from.”
28 Then Jesus called out as he was teaching in the temple courts, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on my own, but the one who sent me is real. You do not know him. 29 I know him because I am from him, and he sent me.”
30 So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.
31 But many in the crowd believed in him and asked, “When the Christ comes, he won’t do more miraculous signs than this man, will he?”
37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and called out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! 38 As the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from deep within the person who believes in me.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive. For the Holy[a] Spirit had not yet come, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.