Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 22
For the Music Director. To the melody of “The Doe of the Dawn.” A Psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from delivering me,
and from my roaring words of distress?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not answer;
and at night, but I have no rest.
3 But You are holy,
O You who inhabits the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in You;
they trusted, and You did deliver them.
5 They cried to You and were delivered;
they trusted in You and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm, and not a man;
a reproach of men and despised by the people.
7 All who see me laugh me to scorn;
they sneer with the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 “Trust in the Lord,
let Him deliver him;
let Him rescue him,
seeing He delights in him.”
9 But You are He who took me out of the womb;
You caused me to trust
while I was on my mother’s breasts.
10 I was cast on You from birth;
You are my God from my mother’s womb.
11 Be not far from me
for trouble is near,
for there is none to help.
12 Many bulls encircle me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me.
13 They open their mouths against me,
as a preying and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted inside my body.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
and You have set me toward the dust of death.
Job Prays for Relief
17 “My spirit is broken,
my days are extinguished,
the grave is ready for me.
2 Are not mockers with me?
And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?
3 “Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself.
Who is he who will shake hands with me?
4 For You have hidden their heart from understanding.
Therefore will You not exalt them.
5 He who speaks flattery to his friends,
even the eyes of his children will fail.
6 “And He has made me a byword of the people,
someone in whose face they spit.
7 My eye also is dim because of sorrow,
and all my members are like a shadow.
8 Upright men will be astonished at this,
and the innocent will stir up himself against the hypocrite.
9 The righteous also will hold to his way,
and he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.
10 “But as for you all, return and come now,
for I cannot find one wise man among you.
11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off,
even the thoughts of my heart.
12 They change the night into day;
the light is short because of darkness.
13 If I wait, the grave is my house;
I have made my bed in the darkness.
14 I have said to the pit, ‘You are my father’;
to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister.’
15 Where now is my hope?
As for my hope, who will see it?
16 Will they go down to the gates of Sheol?
Will we descend together in the dust?”
A Rest for God’s People
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 temptation in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers tested Me and tried Me
and saw My works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
and they have not known My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”[a]
12 Be attentive, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, and you depart from the living God. 13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence firmly to the end, 15 while it is said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
do not harden your hearts
as in the rebellion.”[b]
16 For who were they who heard and rebelled? Was it not all of those who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 And with whom was He grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who had sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they could not enter because of unbelief.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.