Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 22
From Suffering to Praise
For the choir director: according to “The Deer of the Dawn.” A psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?(A)
Why are you so far from my deliverance(B)
and from my words of groaning?(C)
2 My God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
by night, yet I have no rest.(D)
3 But you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.(E)
4 Our ancestors trusted in you;
they trusted, and you rescued them.(F)
5 They cried to you and were set free;
they trusted in you and were not disgraced.(G)
6 But I am a worm and not a man,(H)
scorned by mankind and despised by people.(I)
7 Everyone who sees me mocks me;
they sneer[a] and shake their heads:(J)
8 “He relies on[b] the Lord;
let him save him;
let the Lord[c] rescue him,
since he takes pleasure in him.”(K)
9 It was you who brought me out of the womb,
making me secure at my mother’s breast.(L)
10 I was given over to you at birth;[d]
you have been my God from my mother’s womb.(M)
11 Don’t be far from me, because distress is near
and there’s no one to help.(N)
12 Many bulls surround me;
strong ones of Bashan encircle me.(O)
13 They open their mouths against me—
lions, mauling and roaring.(P)
14 I am poured out like water,(Q)
and all my bones are disjointed;(R)
my heart is like wax,
melting within me.(S)
15 My strength is dried up like baked clay;(T)
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.(U)
You put me into the dust of death.(V)
17 My spirit is broken.
My days are extinguished.
A graveyard(A) awaits me.
2 Surely mockers surround[a] me,
and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.(B)
3 Accept my pledge! Put up security for me.(C)
Who else will be my sponsor?[b]
4 You have closed their minds to understanding,
therefore you will not honor them.
5 If a man denounces his friends for a price,
the eyes of his children will fail.
6 He has made me an object of scorn to the people;
I have become a man people spit at.[c](D)
7 My eyes have grown dim from grief,
and my whole body has become but a shadow.
8 The upright are appalled(E) at this,
and the innocent are roused against the godless.
9 Yet the righteous person will hold to his way,
and the one whose hands are clean(F) will grow stronger.
10 But come back and try again, all of you.[d]
I will not find a wise man among you.
11 My days have slipped by;
my plans have been ruined,
even the things dear to my heart.
12 They turned night into day
and made light seem near in the face of darkness.(G)
13 If I await Sheol as my home,
spread out my bed in darkness,
14 and say to corruption, “You are my father,”
and to the maggot, “My mother” or “My sister,”(H)
15 where then is my hope?(I)
Who can see any hope for me?
16 Will it go down to the gates of Sheol,(J)
or will we descend together to the dust?
Warning against Unbelief
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me, tried me,
and saw my works 10 for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked to anger with that generation
and said, “They always go astray in their hearts,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 So I swore in my anger,
“They will not enter my rest.”[a](A)
12 Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away(B) from the living God. 13 But encourage each other daily,(C) while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened(D) by sin’s deception.(E) 14 For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality[b] that we had at the start.(F) 15 As it is said:
16 For who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all who came out of Egypt under Moses?(H) 17 With whom was God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?(I) 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
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