Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
40 Therefore the wrath of the Lord was kindled against His people,
and He abhorred His own inheritance.
41 He gave them into the hand of the nations,
and those who hated them ruled over them.
42 Their enemies also oppressed them,
and Israel was brought into subjection under their powerful hand.
43 Many times He delivered them,
but they were rebellious against Him with their counsel,
and were afflicted for their iniquity.
44 Nevertheless, He regarded their affliction,
when He heard their cry:
45 and He remembered on their behalf His covenant
and relented according to the greatness of His mercies.
46 He made them pitied
among all those who held them captive.
47 Save us, O Lord our God,
and gather us from among the nations,
to give thanks unto Your holy name
and to boast in Your praise.
48 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting,
and let all the people say, “Amen!”
Praise the Lord!
12 Who is the wise man who may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?
13 And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, nor walked in it, 14 but have walked after the imagination of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them. 15 Therefore thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them water of gall to drink. 16 I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.
17 Thus says the Lord of Hosts:
Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come;
and send for wailing women, that they may come.
18 And let them make haste
and take up a wailing for us,
that our eyes may run down with tears
and our eyelids gush out with waters.
19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion,
“How devastated we are!
We are greatly humiliated,
because we have forsaken the land,
because our dwellings have cast us out.”
20 Yet hear the word of the Lord, O you women,
and let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
and teach your daughters wailing,
and everyone her neighbor a lamentation.
21 “For death has come up into our windows;
and has entered our palaces,
to cut off the children from the streets,
and the young men from the squares.”
22 Speak, Thus says the Lord:
“The carcasses of men shall fall
as dung upon the open field,
and as the sheaf after the harvester,
and no one shall gather them.”
23 Thus says the Lord:
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
and let not the mighty man glory in his might,
let not the rich man glory in his riches;
24 but let him who glories glory in this,
that he understands and knows Me,
that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness,
justice, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these things I delight,
says the Lord.
25 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised— 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the wilderness who clip the hair on their temples; for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.
Peter and John Before the Sanhedrin
4 As they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, 2 being greatly troubled because they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they seized them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men grew to about five thousand.
5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes 6 were assembled at Jerusalem with Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John and Alexander, and all who were of the family of the high priest. 7 When they had stood them in the midst, they asked, “By what power or by what name have you done this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: 9 If we today are being examined concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, how this man has been healed, 10 be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands before you whole. 11 He is
‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’[a]
12 There is no salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.