Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

100 Shout with joy before the Lord, O earth! ² Obey him gladly; come before him, singing with joy.

³ Try to realize what this means—the Lord is God! He made us—we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Go through his open gates with great thanksgiving; enter his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. ⁵ For the Lord is always good. He is always loving and kind, and his faithfulness goes on and on to each succeeding generation.

40 “Comfort, yes, comfort my people,” says your God. ² “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her sad days are gone. Her sins are pardoned, and I have punished her in full for all her sins.”

³ Listen! I hear the voice of someone shouting, “Make a road for the Lord through the wilderness; make him a straight, smooth road through the desert. ⁴ Fill the valleys; level the hills; straighten out the crooked paths, and smooth off the rough spots in the road. ⁵ The glory of the Lord will be seen by all mankind together.” The Lord has spoken—it shall be.

⁶ The voice says, “Shout!”

“What shall I shout?” I asked.

“Shout that man is like the grass that dies away, and all his beauty fades like dying flowers. ⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades beneath the breath of God. And so it is with fragile man. ⁸ The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God shall stand forever.”

⁹ O crier of good news, shout to Jerusalem from the mountaintops! Shout louder—don’t be afraid—tell the cities of Judah, “Your God is coming!” ¹⁰ Yes, the Lord God is coming with mighty power; he will rule with awesome strength. See, his reward is with him, to each as he has done. ¹¹ He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will carry the lambs in his arms and gently lead the ewes with young.

22 And he pointed out to me a river of pure Water of Life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb, ² coursing down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew Trees of Life,^[a] bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month; the leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations.

³ There shall be nothing in the city that is evil; for the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. ⁴ And they shall see his face; and his name shall be written on their foreheads. ⁵ And there will be no night there—no need for lamps or sun—for the Lord God will be their light; and they shall reign forever and ever.

^6-7 Then the angel said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true: ‘I am coming soon!’^[b] God, who tells his prophets what the future holds, has sent his angel to tell you this will happen soon. Blessed are those who believe it and all else written in the scroll.”

⁸ I, John, saw and heard all these things, and fell down to worship the angel who showed them to me; ⁹ but again he said, “No, don’t do anything like that. I, too, am a servant of Jesus as you are, and as your brothers the prophets are, as well as all those who heed the truth stated in this book. Worship God alone.”