Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
44 We have heard with our ears, O God. Our fathers have told us the works that You have done in their days, in the old time.
2 You have driven out the heathen with Your hand and planted them. You have destroyed the people and caused them to go.
3 For they did not inherit the land by their own sword (nor did their own arm save them) but by Your right hand, and Your arm, and the light of Your countenance; because You favored them.
4 You are my King, O God! Send help to Jacob!
5 Through You we have thrust back our adversaries. By Your Name we have trodden down those who rose up against us.
6 For I do not trust in my bow; nor can my sword save me.
7 But You have saved us from our adversaries and have put those who hate us to confusion.
8 We will praise God continually and will confess Your Name forever. Selah.
9 But now, You are far off and put us to confusion, and do not go forth with our armies.
10 You make us turn back from the adversary, and those who hate us get plunder for themselves.
11 You give us as sheep to be eaten and scatter us among the nations.
12 You sell Your people without gain, and do not increase their price.
13 You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a jest and laughing stock to those who surround us.
14 You make us a proverb among the nations, and a nodding of the head among the people.
15 My confusion is daily before me and the shame of my face has covered me,
16 because of the voice of the slanderer and rebuker, because of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this has come upon us. Still, we do not forget You. Nor do we deal falsely concerning Your Covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back, nor have our steps gone out of Your paths;
19 even though You have struck us down into the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the Name of our God, and held up our hands to a strange god,
21 shall not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Surely, for Your sake we are killed continually and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Up! Why do You sleep, O LORD? Awake! Be not far off forever.
24 Why do you hide Your face and forget our misery and our affliction?
25 For our soul is beaten down to the dust. Our belly clings to the ground.
26 Rise up for our succor; and redeem us for Your mercy’s sake. To him who excels on Shoshannim: a song of love to give instruction, committed to the sons of Korah.
14 “Therefore behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak friendly to her.
15 “And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor for a door of hope. And she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as on the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16 “And at that time,” says the LORD, “you shall call me Ishi, and shall no longer call me Baali.
17 “For I will take the names of Baal out of her mouth. And they shall no longer be remembered by their names.
18 “And on that day, I will make a Covenant for them with the wild beasts, and with the birds of the heaven, and with that which creeps upon the earth. And I will break the bow and the sword and the battle from the Earth and will make them sleep safely.
19 “And I will marry you to Me forever. Yea, I will marry you to Me in righteousness and in judgment and in mercy and in compassion.
20 “I will even marry you to Me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.
21 “And on that day, I will hear,” says the LORD, “I will hear the heavens. And they shall hear the Earth.
22 “And the Earth shall hear the grain and the wine and the oil. And they shall hear Jezreel.
23 “And I will sow her to Me in the earth. And I will have mercy upon her who was not pitied. And I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people.’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God.’”
3 Then the LORD said to me, “Go again. Love a woman (beloved by her husband, but also a harlot) according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, though they looked to other gods and loved the wine bottles.”
2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley.
3 And I said to her, “You shall abide with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot and you shall not have another man. And I will be so to you.”
4 For the children of Israel shall remain without a king and without a prince for many days, and without an offering and without an image and without an ephod and without Teraphim.
5 Afterward, the children of Israel shall convert and seek the LORD their God and David, their king, and shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.
16 Therefore, let no one judge you as regards food and drink, or regarding a holy day or the new moon or the Sabbath,
17 which are a shadow of things to come. But the body is of Christ.
18 Let no one, at his pleasure, bear rule over you by his humbleness of mind and his worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has never seen, being rashly puffed up with his fleshly mind
19 and not taking hold of the Head (from Whom all the body, supplied and knit together by joints and bonds, grows with a growth that is from God).
20 Therefore, if you have died with Christ from the principles of the world, why then (as though you lived in the world) do you submit to ordinances such as:
21 “Touch not! Taste not! Handle not!”,
22 which all perish with use and are according to the commandments and doctrines of man?
23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom and of voluntary religion and humbleness of mind and of not sparing the body but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
3 If you, then, are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God.
© 2019, 2024 by Five Talents Audio. All rights reserved.