Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Prophecy has often been described as “speaking truth to power.” Amos predicts the demise of the king, not in some corner somewhere but at the king’s royal shrine at Bethel. The priest in charge, Amaziah, reports the traitorous words to the king and bans the prophet from ever returning to the religious center of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. But Amos has the last word. He will not be silent despite the threats against him. The word of God cannot be suppressed by powerful priests or royal decree. Judgment will surely come to the land because the Lord has decided it!
8 This is what the Eternal Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit.
Eternal One: 2 What do you see, Amos?
Amos: I see a basket of ripe fruit.
Eternal One: The time is ripe for the end of My people, Israel.
I will not overlook their wrongdoing any longer.
3 On that day, the joyous songs sung in the temple will turn to wailing and crying,
and dead bodies will be piled up everywhere, scattered here, scattered there.
Silence!
Says the Eternal Lord.
4 Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor to ruin,
5 Who ask, “When will the new moon festival be done
so we can sell our grain?
And when will the Sabbath end
so we can sell our wheat?
Then we can tamper with our scales
and make the bushel measure smaller
And the counterweight heavier to cheat our customers.
6 We can buy the needy for silver
and the poor and their property for the price of a pair of sandals.
We can even sell the chaff we sweep up as grain.”
7 The Eternal has sworn by the pride of Jacob, the very land He gave to them:
Eternal One: I will not forget anything that Israel has done.
8 Won’t the land beneath their feet tremble for this,
and everyone who lives in it mourn?
The ground will rise and fall like the river Nile, which floods and recedes;
it will ripple and roll like the current of Egypt’s Nile.
9 The Eternal Lord says,
Eternal One: On that day, I will make the sun set at noon
and send darkness across the earth when it should be broad daylight.
10 I will turn your celebrations into mourning
and all your singing into wailing.
I will make it so that all wear mourning sackcloth
and every head is shaved out of sadness.
It will be like the grief you feel at the death of an only child,
and it will be a bitter day by the end.
11 The Eternal Lord says,
Eternal One: The days are coming
when I will send a famine on the land—
Not a hunger for food or thirst for water,
but starvation for the words of the Eternal.
12 People will stagger from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean Sea,
and from the north to the east;
They will run everywhere, desperate to hear the voice of the Eternal One,
but they will not hear it.
Psalm 52
For the worship leader. A contemplative song[a] of David when the Edomite Doeg told Saul that David had received help from Ahimelech.
Psalm 52 recalls the callous way Doeg and Saul put to death the 85 priests of Nob (1 Samuel 22:6–19). The psalm ends with a memorable image: the one who keeps faith with God is like a lush olive tree cared for in His garden. While those who do not trust in Him are snatched up and torn away, those who do right will flourish under His care.
1 Why do you boast of all the trouble you stir up, O mighty one,
when the constant, unfailing love of God is what truly lasts?
2 Have you listened to yourself?
Your tongue is like a sharp razor,
full of lies that slash and tear right to the soul.
3 You’ve fallen in love with evil and have no interest in what He calls good.
You prefer your own lies to speaking what is true.
[pause][b]
4 You love words that destroy people, don’t you,
lying tongue?
5 You won’t be smiling
when the True God brings His justice and destroys you forever.
He will come into your home, snatch you away,
and pull you from the land of the living.
[pause]
6 Those who are just will see what happens to you and be afraid.
And some of them will laugh and say,
7 “Hey, look! Over there is the one who didn’t take
shelter in the True God;
Instead, he trusted in his great wealth
and got what he wanted by destroying others!”
8 But my life is abundant—like a lush olive tree
cared for at the house of the one True God.
I put my trust in His kind love
forever and ever; it will never fail.
9 Because of all You have done,
I will humble myself and thank You forever.
With Your faithful people at my side,
I will put my hope in Your good reputation.
15 He is the exact image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation, the eternal. 16 It was by Him that everything was created: the heavens, the earth, all things within and upon them, all things seen and unseen, thrones and dominions, spiritual powers and authorities. Every detail was crafted through His design, by His own hands, and for His purposes. 17 He has always been! It is His hand that holds everything together. 18 He is the head of this body, the church. He is the beginning, the first of those to be reborn from the dead, so that in every aspect, at every view, in everything—He is first. 19 God was pleased that all His fullness should forever dwell in the Son 20 who, as predetermined by God, bled peace into the world by His death on the cross as God’s means of reconciling to Himself the whole creation—all things in heaven and all things on earth.
As Paul gives thanks to God—a normal thing to do in a letter—he remembers a hymn he heard in the churches. The Colossian hymn (verses 15–20), as we call it, is all about Jesus. It celebrates His reign, first as the Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos and second as the head of the church and the One who reconciles every broken thing to God by what He accomplished on the cross. In this hymn, the story of redemption is a witness to God’s love. Paul wants the Colossians to understand who they are; but to do that, they must first know to whom they belong.
21 You were once at odds with God, wicked in your ways and evil in your minds; 22 but now He has reconciled you in His body—in His flesh through His death—so that He can present you to God holy, blameless, and totally free of imperfection 23 as long as you stay planted in the faith. So don’t venture away from what you have heard and taken to heart: the living hope of the good news that has been announced to all creation under heaven and has captured me, Paul, as its servant.
24 Now I rejoice in what I’ve suffered on your behalf, but even more suffering is ahead for me as I take on and complete what remains of the Anointed’s suffering for the sake of His body, the church. 25 I am a servant appointed by God to preach the Word of God until it is known to you and all over—what I am talking about is nothing less than 26 the mystery of the ages! What was hidden for ages, generations and generations, is now being revealed to His holy ones. 27 He decided to make known to them His blessing to the nations; the glorious riches of this mystery is the indwelling of the Anointed in you! The very hope of glory.
28 We are preaching Him—spreading the Word to all with equal amounts of wise warning and instruction—so that, at the final judgment, we will be able to present everyone to the Creator fully mature because of what Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, has done.
This story brings together many themes from Jesus’ teaching of the Kingdom. Samaritans are seen as “half-breeds” by Jesus’ fellow Jews—racially mixed and also religiously compromised. By making a Samaritan the hero of the story, Jesus is once again tweaking assumptions and breaking out of conventional boxes: “In the kingdom of God,” Jesus is saying, “the outcasts and last can move to the front of the line.” The focus for Jesus is not on the kinds of sophisticated arguments preferred by the religious scholar; for Jesus the kingdom of God is about living life, and in particular, living a life of love for God and for neighbor—whoever that neighbor may be.
38 Jesus continued from there toward Jerusalem and came to another village. Martha, a resident of that village, welcomed Jesus into her home. 39 Her sister, Mary, went and sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him teach. 40 Meanwhile Martha was anxious about all the hospitality arrangements.
Martha (interrupting Jesus): Lord, why don’t You care that my sister is leaving me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to get over here and help me.
Jesus: 41 Oh Martha, Martha, you are so anxious and concerned about a million details, 42 but really, only one thing matters. Mary has chosen that one thing, and I won’t take it away from her.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.