Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 79
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 O God, the nations have come into Your inheritance;
Your holy temple they have defiled;
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
2 The dead bodies of Your servants
they have given to the birds of the sky for food
and the flesh of Your faithful to the animals of the land.
3 Their blood they have poured out like water
all around Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.
4 We have become a reproach to our neighbors,
a scorn and derision to those who are around us.
5 How long, O Lord? Will You be angry forever?
Will Your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out Your wrath
upon the nations who do not know You,
and upon the kingdoms
who have not called upon Your name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob,
and laid waste his dwelling place.
8 Do not choose to remember our former iniquities;
let Your tender mercies come swiftly to us,
for we are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of Your name;
deliver us, and purge away our sins,
for Your name’s sake.
8 At that time, says the Lord, they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his officials, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their graves. 2 And they will spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped. They will not be gathered, nor be buried. They will be as dung upon the face of the earth. 3 Death will be chosen rather than life by all the rest of those who remain of this evil family, which remains in all the places wherever I have driven them, says the Lord of Hosts.
Sin and Judgment
4 Moreover you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
Do men fall and not arise?
Do they turn away and not repent?
5 Why then is this people of Jerusalem
turned away by a perpetual backsliding?
They hold fast to deceit;
they refuse to return.
6 I listened and heard,
but they did not speak what is right.
No man repented of his wickedness,
saying, “What have I done?”
Everyone turned to his course,
as the horse rushes into the battle.
7 Indeed, the stork in the sky
knows her appointed times.
And the turtledove and the crane and the swallow
observe the time of their coming.
But My people do not know
the judgment of the Lord.
8 How do you say, “We are wise,
and the law of the Lord is with us”?
Certainly the lying pen of the scribes
has made it into a lie.
9 The wise men are ashamed;
they are dismayed and caught.
Indeed, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
and what kind of wisdom do they have?
10 Therefore I will give their wives to others,
and their fields to those who shall inherit them.
For everyone from the least even to the greatest
is given to covetousness;
from the prophet even to the priest
everyone deals falsely.
11 For they have healed the brokenness
of the daughter of My people superficially,
saying, “Peace, peace,”
when there is no peace.
12 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?
They were not at all ashamed,
nor could they blush.
Therefore they will fall among those who fall;
in the time of their punishment they will be cast down,
says the Lord.
13 I will surely consume them,
says the Lord.
There will be no grapes on the vine
nor figs on the fig tree,
and the leaf shall fade;
and the things that I have given them
will pass away from them.
The Love of God
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes, who is risen, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities nor powers, neither things present nor things to come, 39 neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.