Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God Really Judges
Psalm 58
1 For the music director: “Do Not Destroy,” a Michtam of David.
2 Do you really speak of justice, O “gods”?
Do you judge with fairness, sons of man?
3 No, in heart you devise injustice.
Your hands weigh out violence on earth.
4 The wicked are strangers from the womb.
Speaking lies, they go astray from birth.
5 Their venom is like a serpent’s venom,
like a deaf cobra shutting its ear—
6 not hearing the voice of charmers,
or a cunning spell binder.
7 O God, break their teeth in their mouths.
Tear out the fangs of young lions, Adonai.
8 Let them flow away like water that runs off.
When he bends his bow, let the arrows be cut off.
9 Like a slug melting away as it slithers,
like a woman’s miscarriage,
may they never see the sun.
10 Even before your pots can feel a thorn
—whether alive or ablaze—
He will sweep the wicked away.
11 The righteous one will rejoice
when he beholds vengeance,
when he washes his feet in the blood of the wicked.
12 Then men will say:
“There really is a reward for the righteous.
There really is a God who judges on earth!”
Unfaithful Judah and Unfaithful Israel
3 “If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him to be with another man,
will he return to her again?
Would not such a land be totally polluted?
You are a prostitute with many lovers.
Now are you returning to Me?”
It is a declaration of Adonai.
2 “Lift your eyes to the barren hills and see!
Where have you not been violated?
By the wayside you sat waiting for them
like a nomad in the desert.
You have polluted the land
with your prostitution and wickedness.
3 Therefore showers have been withheld
and there has been no spring rain.
You have a harlot’s brazen look;
you refuse to be ashamed.
4 Did you not just now call to Me:
‘Avi! You are a friend of my youth.
5 Would He keep a grudge forever?
Would He keep it to the end?’
So you said—
yet you have done
all the evil things you could.”
6 Then Adonai said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what backsliding Israel did? She went up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there she committed adultery. 7 Yet I thought that after she had done all this she would return to Me. But she did not return. Even her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. 8 I noted that when backsliding Israel committed adultery I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. Yet, unfaithful Judah, her sister, did not fear. Instead she also went and committed adultery. 9 It happened that through her frivolous prostitution, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and with wood. 10 Yet after all this her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with her whole heart, but only insincerely,”
It is a declaration of Adonai.
11 Then Adonai said to me, “Backsliding Israel has proved herself more righteous than unfaithful Judah. 12 Go! Proclaim these words toward the north, saying:
“Return backsliding Israel,” says Adonai.
“I will no longer frown on you,
for I am merciful,” says Adonai.
“I will not keep a grudge forever.
13 Only acknowledge your iniquity.
For you sinned against Adonai your God
and scattered your favors to foreign gods
under every green tree.
You have not obeyed My voice.”
It is a declaration of Adonai.
Call to Backsliding Children
14 “Return, O backsliding children,” declares Adonai.
“For I am your Husband.
I will choose you—
one from a city and two from a clan—
and will bring you to Zion.
Greetings
1 Paul, a slave of God and an emissary of Messiah Yeshua, for the faith of God’s chosen and the knowledge of truth that is in keeping with godliness, 2 based on the hope of eternal life. God—who cannot lie[a]—promised this before the beginning of time. 3 But in His own time He made His message known, through a proclamation with which I was entrusted, by the command of God our Savior.
4 To Titus, a true child of our common faith:
Grace and shalom from God the Father and Messiah Yeshua, our Savior!
Setting the Community in Order
5 The reason I left you in Crete was so that you would set in order the things that remain and appoint elders in every city as I directed you— 6 if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children of faith with no charge of wild living or rebellion. 7 For the overseer must be blameless as God’s administrator—not arrogant, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain. 8 Rather he must be hospitable, loving what is good, self-controlled, upright, devout, disciplined. 9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message in keeping with the teaching, so he can both encourage by instruction that is sound and convict those who speak against it.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.