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.

¹⁰ Listen to this message from the Lord, you nations of the world, and publish it abroad: The Lord who scattered his people will gather them back together again and watch over them as a shepherd does his flock. ¹¹ He will save Israel from those who are too strong for them! ¹² They shall come home and sing songs of joy upon the hills of Zion and shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord—the good crops, the wheat, the wine, and the oil, and the healthy flocks and herds. Their life shall be like a watered garden, and all their sorrows shall be gone. ¹³ The young girls will dance for joy, and menfolk—old and young—will take their part in all the fun; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and I will comfort them and make them rejoice, for their captivity with all its sorrows will be behind them. ¹⁴ I will feast the priests with the abundance of offerings brought to them at the Temple; I will satisfy my people with my bounty, says the Lord.

¹⁹ Jesus replied, “The Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing, and in the same way. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son, and tells him everything he is doing; and the Son will do far more awesome miracles than this man’s healing. ²¹ He will even raise from the dead anyone he wants to, just as the Father does. ²² And the Father leaves all judgment of sin to his Son, ²³ so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. But if you refuse to honor God’s Son, whom he sent to you, then you are certainly not honoring the Father.

²⁴ “I say emphatically that anyone who listens to my message and believes in God who sent me has eternal life, and will never be damned for his sins, but has already passed out of death into life.

²⁵ “And I solemnly declare that the time is coming, in fact, it is here, when the dead shall hear my voice—the voice of the Son of God—and those who listen shall live. ²⁶ The Father has life in himself, and has granted his Son to have life in himself, ²⁷ and to judge the sins of all mankind because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸ Don’t be so surprised! Indeed the time is coming when all the dead in their graves shall hear the voice of God’s Son, ²⁹ and shall rise again—those who have done good, to eternal life; and those who have continued in evil, to judgment.

³⁰ “But I pass no judgment without consulting the Father. I judge as I am told. And my judgment is absolutely fair and just, for it is according to the will of God who sent me and is not merely my own.

³¹ “When I make claims about myself they aren’t believed, ^32-33 but someone else, yes, John the Baptist,^[a] is making these claims for me too. You have gone out to listen to his preaching, and I can assure you that all he says about me is true! ³⁴ But the truest witness I have is not from a man, though I have reminded you about John’s witness so that you will believe in me and be saved. ³⁵ John shone brightly for a while, and you benefited and rejoiced, ³⁶ but I have a greater witness than John. I refer to the miracles I do; these have been assigned me by the Father, and they prove that the Father has sent me. ³⁷ And the Father himself has also testified about me, though not appearing to you personally, or speaking to you directly. ³⁸ But you are not listening to him, for you refuse to believe me—the one sent to you with God’s message.

³⁹ “You search the Scriptures, for you believe they give you eternal life. And the Scriptures point to me! ⁴⁰ Yet you won’t come to me so that I can give you this life eternal!