Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

All Lands Summoned to Praise God

A Psalm for the thank offering.

¹⁵ And he blessed Joseph, and said,

¹⁷ When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of E′phraim, it displeased him; and he took his father’s hand, to remove it from E′phraim’s head to Manas′seh’s head. ¹⁸ And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father; for this one is the first-born; put your right hand upon his head.” ¹⁹ But his father refused, and said, “I know, my son, I know; he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; nevertheless his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.” ²⁰ So he blessed them that day, saying,

and thus he put E′phraim before Manas′seh. ²¹ Then Israel said to Joseph, “Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you, and will bring you again to the land of your fathers. ²² Moreover I have given to you rather than to your brothers one mountain slope^[a] which I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.”

The Lamb and the 144,000

14 Then I looked, and lo, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. ² And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of harpers playing on their harps, ³ and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the earth. ⁴ It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are chaste;^[a] it is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes; these have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, ⁵ and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are spotless.

The Messages of the Three Angels

⁶ Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; ⁷ and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water.”

⁸ Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of her impure passion.”

⁹ And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If any one worships the beast and its image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰ he also shall drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. ¹¹ And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”