Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
For the choir director; according to shoshannim eduth; by Asaph; a psalm.
80 Open your ears, O Shepherd of Israel,
the one who leads ⌞the descendants of⌟ Joseph like sheep,
the one who is enthroned over the angels.[a]
2 Appear in front of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.
Wake up your power, and come to save us.
3 O God, restore us and smile on us
so that we may be saved.
4 O Lord God, commander of armies, how long will you smolder in anger
against the prayer of your people?
5 You made them eat tears as food.
You often made them drink ⌞their own⌟ tears.
6 You made us a source of conflict to our neighbors,
and our enemies made fun of us.
7 O God, commander of armies, restore us and smile on us
so that we may be saved.
The New Promise
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new promise [a] to Israel and Judah. 32 It will not be like the promise that I made to their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of Egypt. They rejected that promise, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the promise that I will make to Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put my teachings inside them, and I will write those teachings on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will each person teach his neighbors or his relatives by saying, ‘Know the Lord.’ All of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” declares the Lord, “because I will forgive their wickedness and I will no longer hold their sins against them.”
10 We have been set apart as holy because Jesus Christ did what God wanted him to do by sacrificing his body once and for all.
11 Every day each priest performed his religious duty. He offered the same type of sacrifice again and again. Yet, these sacrifices could never take away sins. 12 However, this chief priest made one sacrifice for sins, and this sacrifice lasts forever. Now he holds the honored position—the one next to God the Father on the heavenly throne. 13 Since that time, he has been waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 With one sacrifice he accomplished the work of setting them apart for God forever.
15 The Holy Spirit tells us the same thing: 16 “This is the promise [a] that I will make to them after those days, says the Lord: ‘I will put my teachings in their hearts and write them in their minds.’ ”
17 Then he adds, “I will no longer hold their sins and their disobedience against them.”
18 When sins are forgiven, there is no longer any need to sacrifice for sins.
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