Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 79[a]
Prayer for Restoration
1 A psalm of Asaph.[b]
[c]O God, the nations have invaded your heritage;
they have profaned your holy temple
and turned Jerusalem into a heap of ruins.
2 They have given the corpses of your servants
as food to the birds of the air,
the flesh of your saints
to the beasts of the earth.
3 They have poured out their blood like water
all around Jerusalem,
and no one is left to bury them.[d]
4 We have become the scorn of our neighbors,
mocked and derided by those around us.[e]
5 [f]How long, O Lord?[g] Will you be angry forever?
How long will your rage continue to blaze like a fire?
6 [h]Pour out your wrath on the nations
that refuse to acknowledge you,
on the kingdoms
that fail to call on your name.[i]
7 For they have devoured Jacob
and ravaged his homeland.
8 Do not hold against us the sins of our ancestors;
let your mercy come quickly to meet us,
for we are in desperate straits.[j]
9 [k]Help us, O God, our Savior,
for the glory of your name;
deliver us and wipe away our sins
for your name’s sake.[l]
14 Judah’s Evil Neighbors. Thus says the Lord, “As for all my evil neighbors who have seized the inheritance I gave to my people Israel, I will uproot them from their land, and from among them I will uproot the house of Judah. 15 But after I uproot them, I will again take pity on them and bring them back, each one to his own heritage and his own land.
16 “Then, if they carefully adhere to the ways of my people and swear by my name, saying, ‘As the Lord lives,’ just as previously they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be reestablished among my people. 17 But if any nation refuses to listen, I will uproot that nation and destroy it completely,” says the Lord.
Chapter 13[a]
Warnings to Judah. 1 The Lord said to me: Go forth and purchase for yourself a loincloth. Wrap it around your loins, but do not dip it in water. 2 I purchased the loincloth as instructed by the Lord and wrapped it around my loins.
3 Then the Lord spoke to me a second time, saying: 4 Take the loincloth that you purchased and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates and conceal it there in a cleft of the rock. 5 So I went to the Euphrates and hid it as the Lord had commanded me.
6 After a long period of time, the Lord said to me: Go now to the Euphrates and retrieve the loincloth that I instructed you to hide there. 7 And so I returned to the Euphrates and searched for the cleft, and I then retrieved the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But the loincloth had now rotted and was good for nothing.
8 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 9 Thus says the Lord: In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the enormous pride of Jerusalem. 10 Because these wicked people refuse to listen to my words and stubbornly follow their own inclinations as they run after other gods to serve them and worship them, they will become like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. 11 For just as a loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in the hope that they would become my people, my praise, and my pride. But they refused to listen.
Chapter 3
The Value of Judaism. 1 Is there any advantage, therefore, in being a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 A great deal in every respect. In the first place, they were entrusted with the words of God. 3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their lack of faith nullify the fidelity of God? 4 By no means! God must be true even if every human being is a liar,[a] as it is written,
“That you may be justified in your words,
and vindicated when you are judged.”
5 But if our wickedness serves to confirm the righteousness of God, what are we to say? Is God unjust (I speak of him in human terms) to bring retribution upon us? 6 Of course not! For that would imply that God could not judge the world. 7 But if, as a result of my falsehood, God demonstrates his truthfulness, to his greater glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? 8 And why not say, as some people slanderously accuse us of proposing, “Let us do evil so that good may result”? Such people deserve their condemnation.
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