Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
142 1-2 How I plead with God, how I implore his mercy, pouring out my troubles before him. 3 For I am overwhelmed and desperate, and you alone know which way I ought to turn to miss the traps my enemies have set for me. 4 (There’s one—just over there to the right!) No one gives me a passing thought. No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me. 5 Then I prayed to Jehovah. “Lord,” I pled, “you are my only place of refuge. Only you can keep me safe.
6 “Hear my cry, for I am very low. Rescue me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. 7 Bring me out of prison so that I can thank you. The godly will rejoice with me for all your help.”
15 The Lord’s vengeance will soon fall upon all Gentile nations. As you have done to Israel, so will it be done to you. Your acts will boomerang upon your heads. 16 You drank my cup of punishment upon my holy mountain, and the nations round about will drink it too; yes, they will drink and stagger back and disappear from history, no longer nations anymore.
17 “But Jerusalem will become a refuge, a way of escape. Israel will reoccupy the land. 18 Israel will be a fire that sets the dry fields of Edom aflame. There will be no survivors,” for the Lord has spoken.
19 Then my people who live in the Negeb shall occupy the hill country of Edom; those living in Judean lowlands shall possess the Philistine plains and repossess the fields of Ephraim and Samaria. And the people of Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20 The Israeli exiles shall return and occupy the Phoenician coastal strip as far north as Zarephath. Those exiled in Asia Minor shall return to their homeland and conquer the Negeb’s outlying villages. 21 For deliverers will come to Jerusalem and rule all Edom. And the Lord shall be King!
10 His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you always use these hard-to-understand illustrations?”[a]
11 Then he explained to them that only they were permitted to understand about the Kingdom of Heaven, and others were not.
12-13 “For to him who has will more be given,” he told them, “and he will have great plenty; but from him who has not, even the little he has will be taken away. That is why I use these illustrations, so people will hear and see but not understand.[b]
14 “This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah:
‘They hear, but don’t understand; they look, but don’t see! 15 For their hearts are fat and heavy, and their ears are dull, and they have closed their eyes in sleep, 16 so they won’t see and hear and understand and turn to God again, and let me heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. 17 Many a prophet and godly man has longed to see what you have seen and hear what you have heard, but couldn’t.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.