Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

28 I plead with you to help me, Lord, for you are my Rock of safety. If you refuse to answer me, I might as well give up and die. ² Lord, I lift my hands to heaven^[a] and implore your help. Oh, listen to my cry.

³ Don’t punish me with all the wicked ones who speak so sweetly to their neighbors while planning to murder them. ⁴ Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it out to them in proportion to their wickedness; pay them back for all their evil deeds. ⁵ They care nothing for God or what he has done or what he has made; therefore God will dismantle them like old buildings, never to be rebuilt again.

⁶ Oh, praise the Lord, for he has listened to my pleadings! ⁷ He is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trusted in him, and he helped me. Joy rises in my heart until I burst out in songs of praise to him. ⁸ The Lord protects his people and gives victory to his anointed king.

⁹ Defend your people, Lord; defend and bless your chosen ones. Lead them like a shepherd and carry them forever in your arms.

⁴ Then said the Lord my God to me, “Go and take a job as shepherd of a flock being fattened for the butcher. ⁵ This will illustrate the way my people have been bought and slain by wicked leaders, who go unpunished. ‘Thank God, now I am rich!’ say those who have betrayed them—their own shepherds have sold them without mercy. ⁶ And I won’t spare them either,” says the Lord, “for I will let them fall into the clutches of their own wicked leaders, and they will slay them. They shall turn the land into a wilderness, and I will not protect it from them.”

⁷ So I took two shepherd’s staffs, naming one Grace and the other Union, and I fed the flock as I had been told to do. ⁸ And I got rid of their three evil shepherds in a single month. But I became impatient with these sheep—this nation—and they hated me too.

⁹ So I told them, “I won’t be your shepherd any longer. If you die, you die; if you are killed, I don’t care. Go ahead and destroy yourselves!”

¹⁰ And I took my staff called Grace and snapped it in two, showing that I had broken my contract to lead and protect them. ¹¹ That was the end of the agreement. Then those who bought and sold sheep, who were watching, realized that God was telling them something through what I did.

¹² And I said to their leaders, “If you like, give me my pay, whatever I am worth; but only if you want to.”

So they counted out thirty little silver coins^[a] as my wages.

¹³ And the Lord told me, “Use it to buy a field from the pottery makers^[b]—this magnificent sum they value you at!”

So I took the thirty coins and threw them into the Temple for the pottery makers. ¹⁴ Then I broke my other staff, “Union,” to show that the bond of unity between Judah and Israel was broken.

¹⁵ Then the Lord told me to go again and get a job as a shepherd; this time I was to act the part of a worthless, wicked shepherd.

¹⁶ And he said to me, “This illustrates how I will give this nation a shepherd who will not care for the dying ones, nor look after the young, nor heal the broken bones, nor feed the healthy ones, nor carry the lame that cannot walk; instead, he will eat the fat ones, even tearing off their feet. ¹⁷ Woe to this worthless shepherd who doesn’t care for the flock. God’s sword will cut his arm and pierce through his right eye; his arm will become useless and his right eye blinded.”

19 After this I heard the shouting of a vast crowd in heaven, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Salvation is from our God. Honor and authority belong to him alone; ² for his judgments are just and true. He has punished the Great Prostitute who corrupted the earth with her sin;^[a] and he has avenged the murder of his servants.”

³ Again and again their voices rang, “Praise the Lord! The smoke from her burning ascends forever and forever!”

⁴ Then the twenty-four Elders and four Living Beings fell down and worshiped God, who was sitting upon the throne, and said, “Amen! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”

⁵ And out of the throne came a voice that said, “Praise our God, all you his servants, small and great, who fear him.”

⁶ Then I heard again what sounded like the shouting of a huge crowd, or like the waves of a hundred oceans crashing on the shore, or like the mighty rolling of great thunder, “Praise the Lord. For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. ⁷ Let us be glad and rejoice and honor him; for the time has come for the wedding banquet of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. ⁸ She is permitted to wear the cleanest and whitest and finest of linens.” (Fine linen represents the good deeds done by the people of God.)

⁹ And the angel^[b] dictated this sentence to me: “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And he added, “God himself has stated this.”