Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Book V—Psalms 107–150[a]
Psalm 107[b]
God, Savior of Those in Distress
1 “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his kindness[c] endures forever.”
2 Let this be the prayer of the redeemed of the Lord,
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe
3 and gathered together from the lands,[d]
from east and west, north and south.
4 [e]Some wandered in a barren wilderness,
unable to discover a path to an inhabited city.
5 They were hungry and thirsty,
and their life was wasting away.
6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their anguish,
and he saved them from their distress.
7 He led them by a direct route
to a city in which they could dwell.
8 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his kindness[f]
and for the wonders he does for people.
9 He has satisfied the thirsty
and filled the hungry with good things.
43 Let whoever is wise reflect on these things
and understand the merciful love of the Lord.[a]
Chapter 9
Such Sacrifice Will Be Like Mourners’ Bread
1 Do not rejoice, O Israel!
Do not exult like the other nations!
For you have been unfaithful to your God;
you have loved the wages of a prostitute
upon every threshing floor.[a]
2 Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed them,
and the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not remain in the land of the Lord;
Ephraim will return to Egypt[b]
and eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 No longer will they pour libations of wine to the Lord,
nor will their sacrifices please him.
To them such sacrifice will be like mourners’ bread
that defiles all who eat of it.
Whatever food they have will be for them alone;
it cannot enter the house of the Lord.
5 What will you do on the solemn feasts,
on the festival day of the Lord?[c]
6 Even if the people escape destruction,
Egypt will gather them
and Memphis[d] will bury them.
Weeds will swallow up their treasures of silver,
and thorns will overrun their tents.
The Prophet Is Ridiculed
7 The days of punishment have come;
the days of retribution are here.
Israel cries out,
“The prophet is a fool,
the inspired man is a maniac.”
Because your iniquity is great,
all the greater is your hostility.
8 The prophet has been appointed by God
to serve as a watchman over Ephraim.
Yet snares await him on all his paths
and he incurs hostility in the house of his God.
9 They have immersed themselves in corruption
as in the days of Gibeah.[e]
God will remember their iniquity
and punish their sins.
At the Roots of the Evil of Israel[f]
The Crimes of Baal-peor and Gilgal
10 It was like finding grapes in the desert
when I found Israel.
When I saw your fathers,
it was like seeing the early frost on a fig tree.
However, when they came to Baal-peor,
they consecrated themselves to a shameful idol,
and they became as loathsome as the thing they loved.
11 Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
12 Even if they were to bear children,
I will take away from them every single one.
Woe to them
when I turn away from them!
13 Ephraim once seemed to me like Tyre,
planted in a beautiful meadow.
But now Ephraim will be required
to lead out his children for slaughter.
14 Give them, O Lord—
what will you give?
Give them wombs that miscarry[g]
and dried-up breasts.
15 All of their wickedness had its root in Gilgal;[h]
it was there that I came to hate them.
Because of their evil deeds,
I will drive them out of my house.
I will no longer love them;
all of their rulers are rebels.
16 Ephraim is stricken;
their root is withered,
and they yield no fruit.
Even if they bring forth children,
I will slay the cherished offspring of their womb.
17 My God will cast them off
because they have not listened to him;
they will become wanderers among the nations.
17 The Newness of the Christian Life. Therefore, I declare and attest in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and their hardness of heart. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have abandoned themselves to vice, committing every kind of impurity in growing excess.
20 That is not how you learned Christ. 21 Clearly, you were told about him and were taught what the truth is in Jesus. 22 You were taught to cast aside the old self of your former way of life that had been corrupted by its captivating desires. 23 You are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to clothe yourselves with the new self created in God’s image, in the way of uprightness and holiness that belong to the truth.
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