Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 44[a]
God’s Past Favor and Israel’s Present Need
1 For the leader. A maskil of the Korahites.
I
2 O God, we have heard with our own ears;
our ancestors have told us(A)
The deeds you did in their days,
with your own hand in days of old:
3 You rooted out nations to plant them,(B)
crushed peoples and expelled them.
4 Not with their own swords did they conquer the land,(C)
nor did their own arms bring victory;
It was your right hand, your own arm,
the light of your face for you favored them.(D)
5 You are my king and my God,(E)
who bestows victories on Jacob.
6 Through you we batter our foes;
through your name we trample our adversaries.
7 Not in my bow do I trust,
nor does my sword bring me victory.
8 You have brought us victory over our enemies,
shamed those who hate us.
9 In God we have boasted all the day long;
your name we will praise forever.
Selah
II
10 (F)But now you have rejected and disgraced us;
you do not march out with our armies.(G)
11 You make us retreat[b] before the foe;
those who hate us plunder us at will.(H)
12 You hand us over like sheep to be slaughtered,
scatter us among the nations.(I)
13 You sell your people for nothing;
you make no profit from their sale.(J)
14 You make us the reproach of our neighbors,(K)
the mockery and scorn of those around us.
15 You make us a byword among the nations;
the peoples shake their heads at us.
16 All day long my disgrace is before me;
shame has covered my face
17 At the sound of those who taunt and revile,
at the sight of the enemy and avenger.
III
18 All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten you,
nor been disloyal to your covenant.
19 [c]Our hearts have not turned back,
nor have our steps strayed from your path.
20 Yet you have left us crushed,
desolate in a place of jackals;[d](L)
you have covered us with a shadow of death.
21 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
stretched out our hands to another god,
22 Would not God have discovered this,
God who knows the secrets of the heart?
23 For you we are slain all the day long,
considered only as sheep to be slaughtered.(M)
IV
11 For you also, Judah,
a harvest[a] has been appointed!
Chapter 7
When I would have restored the fortunes of my people,
1 when I would have healed Israel,
The guilt of Ephraim was revealed,
the wickedness of Samaria:
They practiced falsehood.
Thieves break in,
bandits roam outside.
2 Yet they do not call to mind
that I remember all their wickedness.(A)
Now their crimes surround them,
present to my sight.(B)
Israel’s Domestic Politics[b]
3 With their wickedness they make the king rejoice,
the princes too, with their treacherous deeds.
4 They are all adulterers,[c]
like a blazing oven,
Which the baker quits stoking,
after the dough’s kneading until its rising.
5 On the day of our king,
they made the princes sick with poisoned wine;
he extended his hand to the scoffers.
6 For they draw near in ambush
with their hearts like an oven.
All the night their anger sleeps;
in the morning it flares like a blazing fire.
7 They are all heated like ovens,
and consume their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
none of them calls upon me.
Israel’s Foreign Politics
8 Ephraim is mixed with the nations,[d]
Ephraim is an unturned cake.
9 Strangers have consumed his strength,
but he does not know it;(C)
Gray hairs are strewn on his head,
but he takes no notice of it.
10 The arrogance of Israel bears witness against him;
yet they do not return to the Lord, their God,
nor seek him, despite all this.(D)
11 Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and senseless;
They call upon Egypt,
they go to Assyria.
12 When they go I will spread my net around them,
like birds in the air I will bring them down.(E)
I will chastise them when I hear of their assembly.
13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Ruin to them, for they have rebelled against me!
Though I wished to redeem them,
they spoke lies against me.
14 They have not cried to me from their hearts
when they wailed upon their beds;
For wheat and wine they lacerated themselves;[e]
they rebelled against me.
15 Though I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devised evil against me.
16 They have again become useless,
they have been like a treacherous bow.(F)
Their princes shall fall by the sword
because of the insolence of their tongues;
thus they shall be mocked in the land of Egypt.
43 (A)“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’(B) 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors[a] do the same? 47 And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?[b] 48 So be perfect,[c] just as your heavenly Father is perfect.(C)
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.