Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A Lament Over Jerusalem
Psalm 79
1 A Psalm of Asaph.
God, the nations have invaded Your inheritance,
defiled Your holy Temple,
and reduced Jerusalem to ruins.
2 They gave the carcasses of Your servants as food to the birds of the skies,
the flesh of Your kedoshim to the beasts of the earth.
3 They poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.
4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
a scorn and derision to those around us.
5 How long, Adonai, will You be angry?
Forever?
Will Your jealousy keep blazing like fire?
6 Pour out Your wrath
on the nations that do not acknowledge You,
on the kingdoms that do not call on Your name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob
and laid waste his country.
8 Do not hold against us the sins of our fathers.
May Your mercies come quickly to meet us,
for we are brought very low.
9 Help us, God of our salvation—
for the sake of the glory of Your Name.
Deliver us, and atone for our sins—
for Your name’s sake.
14 Thus says Adonai, “As for all My evil neighbors who strike at the inheritance that I bequeathed to My people Israel—I am about to uproot them from their land and pluck the house of Judah from them. 15 Yet it will come to pass, after I have uprooted them, that I will again have compassion on them and I will bring them back, each one to his inheritance and each one to his land.
16 “So it will come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of My people—to swear by My Name, ‘As Adonai lives,’ just as they taught My people to swear by Baal—then they will be built up in the midst of My people. 17 But if they will not obey, then I will uproot that nation, plucking it up and destroying it.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
Linen Waistband and Wine Jugs
13 Thus Adonai said to me: “Go, and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waist, and do not put it in water.”
2 So I got a waistband in keeping with the word of Adonai, and put it on my waist. 3 Then the word of Adonai came to me a second time, saying: 4 “Take the waistband that you bought, which is on your waist, and get up, go to Perath[a] and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”
5 So I went and hid it at Perath, as Adonai commanded me. 6 Now it came to pass after many days that Adonai said to me: “Get up, go to Perath, and take the waistband that I commanded you to hide there.” 7 So I went to Perath, dug it up and took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it. But to my surprise, the waistband was marred, worth nothing at all.
8 Then the word of Adonai came to me, saying, 9 thus says Adonai: “Just so I will mar the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 This wicked people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their own heart, and go after other gods to serve them and worship them, will be just like this waistband—worth nothing at all. 11 For just as the waistband clings to a man’s waist, so I will make the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me,” declares Adonai, “to be to Me a people, a name, a praise and a glory. But they would not obey.”
No One Is Acceptable
3 Then what is the advantage of being Jewish? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? 2 Much in every way. First of all, they were entrusted with the sayings of God. 3 So what if some did not trust? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? 4 May it never be! Let God be true even if every man is a liar, as it is written,
“that You may be righteous in Your words
and prevail when You are judged.”[a]
5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? God is not unrighteous to inflict wrath, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) 6 May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? 7 But if by my lie the truth of God abounds to His glory, why am I still judged as a sinner? 8 And why not say, “Let us do evil, so that good may come”—just as we are being slandered and as some claim that we say. Their condemnation is deserved!
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.