Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

²⁵ My praise shall be of You in the great congregation. I will pay to Him my vows [made in the time of trouble] before them who fear (revere and worship) Him.

²⁶ The poor and afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord—they who [diligently] seek for, inquire of and for Him, and require Him [as their greatest need]. May your hearts be quickened now and forever!

²⁷ All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall bow down and worship before You,

²⁸ For the kingship and the kingdom are the Lord’s, and He is the ruler over the nations.

²⁹ All the mighty ones upon earth shall eat [in thanksgiving] and worship; all they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him, even he who cannot keep himself alive.

³⁰ Posterity shall serve Him; they shall tell of the Lord to the next generation.

³¹ They shall come and shall declare His righteousness to a people yet to be born—that He has done it [that it is finished]!^(A)

⁷ You [O degenerate children of Israel] are no more to Me than these [despised] Cushites, says the Lord. I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, but have I not [also] brought the Philistines out of Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?

⁸ Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom [of Israel’s ten tribes] and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord.

⁹ For behold, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations and cause it to move to and fro as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least kernel fall upon the earth and be lost [from My sight].^(A)

¹⁰ All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, who say, The evil shall not overtake or meet [and assail] us.

¹¹ In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David, the fallen hut or booth, and close up its breaches; and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old,

¹² That they may possess the remnant of Edom and of all the nations that are called by My name, says the Lord Who does this.^(B)

¹³ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine and all the hills shall melt [that is, everything heretofore barren and unfruitful shall overflow with spiritual blessing].^(C)

¹⁴ And I will bring back the exiles of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them.

¹⁵ And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be torn up out of their land which I gave them, says the Lord your God.

³⁰ And He said, With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use to illustrate and explain it?

³¹ It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all seeds upon the earth;

³² Yet after it is sown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all garden herbs and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air are able to make nests and dwell in its shade.