◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous) / Psalm 91:1-6 14-16 (God my refuge); Jeremiah 23:9-22 (False prophets denounced); 2 Corinthians 8:8-15 (Christ became poor) (New English Translation)

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September 22, 2022

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 91:1-6

Psalm 91^[a]

91 As for you, the one who lives^[b] in the shelter of the Most High,^[c]
and resides in the protective shadow^[d] of the Sovereign One^[e]—
²I say this about the Lord, my shelter and my stronghold,
my God in whom I trust—
³he will certainly rescue you from the snare of the hunter^[f]
and from the destructive plague.
⁴He will shelter you^[g] with his wings;^[h]
you will find safety under his wings.
His faithfulness is like a shield or a protective wall.^[i]
⁵You need not fear the terrors of the night,^[j]
the arrow that flies by day,
⁶the plague that stalks in the darkness,
or the disease that ravages at noon.^[k]

Footnotes

Psalm 91:1 sn Psalm 91. In this psalm an individual (perhaps a priest) addresses one who has sought shelter in the Lord and assures him that God will protect him from danger (vv. 1-13). In vv. 14-16 God himself promises to keep his loyal follower safe.
Psalm 91:1 tn Heb “[O] one who lives.”
Psalm 91:1 sn The divine title “Most High” (עֶלְיוֹן ʿelyon) pictures God as the exalted ruler of the universe who vindicates the innocent and judges the wicked. See especially Pss 7:17; 9:2; 18:13; 21:7; 47:2.
Psalm 91:1 sn The Lord is compared here to a bird who protects its young under the shadow of its wings (see v. 4).
Psalm 91:1 sn The divine name used here is “Shaddai” (שַׁדַּי, shadday; see also Ps 68:14). Shaddai (or El Shaddai) is the Sovereign God of the world who grants life/blesses and kills/judges. In Genesis he blesses the patriarchs with fertility and promises numerous descendants. Outside Genesis he both blesses/protects and takes away life/happiness.
Psalm 91:3 tn The word refers specifically to a fowler (or hunter of birds).
Psalm 91:4 tn Heb “put a cover over you” (see Ps 5:11).
Psalm 91:4 tc The Hebrew text has the singular, but the plural should be read. The final י (yod) of the suffix, which indicates the plural, has dropped off by haplography (note the yod at the beginning of the next word).
Psalm 91:4 tn Traditionally the Hebrew term סֹחֵרָה (sokherah), which occurs only here in the OT, has been understood to refer to a buckler or small shield (see BDB 695 s.v.). But HALOT 750 s.v., on the basis of evidence from the cognate languages, proposes the meaning “wall.”
Psalm 91:5 tn This probably alludes to a sneak attack by enemies in the darkness of night (see Song 3:8).
Psalm 91:6 sn As in Deut 32:23-24, vv. 5-6 closely associate military attack and deadly disease. Perhaps the latter alludes to one of the effects of siege warfare on the population of an entrapped city, which was especially vulnerable to the outbreak of epidemics.

Psalm 91:14-16

¹⁴The Lord says,^[a]
“Because he is devoted to me, I will deliver him;
I will protect him^[b] because he is loyal to me.^[c]
¹⁵When he calls out to me, I will answer him.
I will be with him when he is in trouble;
I will rescue him and bring him honor.
¹⁶I will satisfy him with long life,^[d]
and will let him see my salvation.”

Jeremiah 23:9-22

Oracles Against the False Prophets^[a]

⁹Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets:^[b]

My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed.
I tremble all over.^[c]
I am like a drunk person,
like a person who has had too much wine,^[d]
because of the way the Lord
and his holy word are being mistreated.^[e]
¹⁰For the land is full of people unfaithful to him.^[f]
They live wicked lives and they misuse their power.^[g]
So the land is dried up^[h] because it is under his curse.^[i]
The pastures in the wilderness are withered.

¹¹Moreover,^[j] the Lord says,^[k]

“Both the prophets and priests are godless.
I have even found them doing evil in my temple.
¹²So the paths they follow will be dark and slippery.
They will stumble and fall headlong.
For I will bring disaster on them.
A day of reckoning is coming for them.”^[l]
The Lord affirms it!^[m]
¹³The Lord says,^[n] “I saw the prophets of Samaria
doing something that was disgusting.^[o]
They prophesied in the name of the god Baal
and led my people Israel astray.^[p]
¹⁴But I see the prophets of Jerusalem
doing something just as shocking.
They are unfaithful to me
and continually prophesy lies.^[q]
So they give encouragement to people who are doing evil,
with the result that they do not stop their evildoing.^[r]
I consider all of them as bad as the people of Sodom,
and the citizens of Jerusalem as bad as the people of Gomorrah.^[s]
¹⁵So then I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,^[t]
have something to say concerning the prophets of Jerusalem:^[u]
‘I will make these prophets eat the bitter food of suffering
and drink the poison water of judgment.^[v]
For the prophets of Jerusalem are the reason^[w]
that ungodliness^[x] has spread throughout the land.’”

¹⁶The Lord of Heaven’s Armies^[y] says to the people of Jerusalem:^[z]

“Do not listen to what
those prophets are saying to you.
They are filling you with false hopes.
They are reporting visions of their own imaginations,
not something the Lord has given them to say.^[aa]
¹⁷They continually say^[ab] to those who reject what the Lord has said,^[ac]
‘Things will go well for you!’^[ad]
They say to all those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts,
‘Nothing bad will happen to you!’
¹⁸Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord’s inner circle^[ae]
so they^[af] could see and hear what he has to say?^[ag]
Which of them have ever paid attention or listened to what he has said?
¹⁹But just watch!^[ah] The wrath of the Lord
will come like a storm!^[ai]
Like a raging storm it will rage down^[aj]
on the heads of those who are wicked.
²⁰The anger of the Lord will not turn back
until he has fully carried out his intended purposes.^[ak]
In future days^[al]
you people will come to understand this clearly.^[am]
²¹I did not send those prophets,
yet they were in a hurry to give their message.^[an]
I did not tell them anything,
yet they prophesied anyway.
²²But if they had stood in my inner circle,^[ao]
they would have proclaimed my message to my people.
They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways
and stop doing the evil things they are doing.

Footnotes

Jeremiah 23:9 sn Jeremiah has already had a good deal to say about the false prophets and their fate. See 2:8, 26; 5:13, 31; 14:13-15. Here he parallels the condemnation of the wicked prophets and their fate (23:9-40) with that of the wicked kings (21:11-22:30).
Jeremiah 23:9 tn The word “false” is not in the text, but it is clear from the context that false prophets are the target of the sayings. The words “Here is what the Lord says” are also not in the text. But comparison with 46:2; 48:1; 49:1, 7, 23, 28; and 21:11 will show that “concerning the prophets” is a heading. The other words are supplied in the translation for clarity.
Jeremiah 23:9 tn Heb “My heart is crushed within me. My bones tremble.” It has already been noted several times that in ancient Hebrew psychology the “heart” was the intellectual and volitional center of the person, the kidneys were the emotional center, and the bones were the locus of strength and also a subject of joy, distress, and sorrow. Here Jeremiah is speaking of what modern psychology would call his distress of heart and mind, a distress leading to bodily trembling, which he compares to that of a drunken person staggering around under the influence of wine.
Jeremiah 23:9 tn Heb “wine has passed over him.”
Jeremiah 23:9 tn Heb “wine because of the Lord and because of his holy word.” The words that are supplied in the translation are implicit from the context and are added for clarity.sn The way the Lord and his word are being treated is clarified in the verses that follow.
Jeremiah 23:10 tn Heb “adulterers.” But spiritual adultery is clearly meant, as also in 3:8-9; 9:2, and probably 5:7.
Jeremiah 23:10 tn For the word translated “They live…lives,” see usage in Jer 8:6. For the idea of “misusing” their power (Heb “their power is not right,” i.e., used in the wrong way), see 2 Kgs 7:9 and 17:9. In the original text this line (really two lines in the Hebrew poetry) are at the end of the verse. However, this places the antecedent too far away and could lead to confusion. The lines have been rearranged to avoid such confusion.
Jeremiah 23:10 tn For the use of this verb see 12:4 and the note there.
Jeremiah 23:10 tc The translation follows the majority of Hebrew mss (מֵאָלָה, meʾalah) rather than the Greek and Syriac version and a few Hebrew mss, which read “because of these” (מֵאֵלֶּה [meʾelleh], referring to the people unfaithful to him).sn The curse is, of course, the covenant curse. See Deut 29:20-21 (29:19-20 HT), and for the specific curse see Deut 28:23-24. The curse is appropriate since their “adultery” lay in attributing their fertility to the god Baal (see Hos 2:9-13 (2:11-15 HT) and violating the covenant (see Hos 4:1-3).
Jeremiah 23:11 tn The particle כִּי (ki) that begins this verse is parallel to the one at the beginning of the preceding verse. However, the connection is too distant to render it “for.” “Moreover” is intended to draw the parallel. The words “the Lord says” (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) have been drawn up to the front to introduce the shift in speaker from Jeremiah, who describes his agitated state, to God, who describes the sins of the prophets and priests and his consequent judgment on them.
Jeremiah 23:11 tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”
Jeremiah 23:12 tn For the last two lines see 11:23 and the notes there.
Jeremiah 23:12 tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”
Jeremiah 23:13 tn The words “The Lord says” are not in the text, but it is clear from the content that he is the speaker. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.
Jeremiah 23:13 tn According to BDB 1074 s.v. תִּפְלָה (tiflah) this word means “unseemly, unsavory.” The related adjective is used in Job 6:6 of the tastelessness of something that is unseasoned.
Jeremiah 23:13 tn Heb “by Baal.”sn Prophesying in the name of the god Baal was a clear violation of Mosaic law and punishable by death (see Deut 13:1-5). For an example of the apostasy encouraged by prophets of Baal in the northern kingdom of Israel, see 1 Kgs 18:16-40.
Jeremiah 23:14 tn Or “they commit adultery and deal falsely.” The word “shocking” only occurs here and in 5:30, where it is found in the context of prophesying lies. This almost assures that the reference to “walking in lies” (Heb “in the lie”) is referring to false prophesy. Moreover, the references to the prophets in 5:13 and in 14:13-15 are all in the context of false prophesy, as are the following references in this chapter (23:24, 26, 32) and in 28:15. False prophets seem to be the theme of this section. This fact also makes it likely that the reference to adultery is not literal adultery, though two of the false prophets in Babylon were guilty of this (29:23). The encouragement of those who did evil also makes more sense if the prophets were preaching messages of comfort rather than doom. The verbs here are infinitive absolutes in place of the finite verb, probably to place greater emphasis on the action (cf. Hos 4:2 in a comparable judgment speech.)
Jeremiah 23:14 tn Heb “So they strengthen the hands of those doing evil so that they do not turn back from their evil.” For the use of the figure “strengthen the hands,” meaning “encourage,” see Judg 9:24 and Ezek 13:22 (and cf. BDB 304 s.v. חָזַק Piel.2). The vav consecutive on the front of the form gives the logical consequence equivalent to “so” in the translation.
Jeremiah 23:14 tn Heb “All of them are to me like Sodom and its [Jerusalem’s] inhabitants like Gomorrah.”sn The rhetoric of this passage is very forceful. Like Amos who focuses attention on the sins of the surrounding nations to bring out more forcefully the heinousness of Israel’s sin, God focuses attention on the sins of the prophets of Samaria to bring out the even worse sin of the prophets of Jerusalem. (The oracle is directed at them, not at the prophets of Samaria. See the announcement of judgment that follows.) The Lord has already followed that tack with Judah in Jeremiah 2 (cf. 2:11). Moreover, he here compares the prophets and the evil-doing citizens of Jerusalem, whom they were encouraging through their false prophesy, to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who were proverbial for their wickedness (Deut 32:32; Isa 1:10).
Jeremiah 23:15 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies.”sn See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of this title.
Jeremiah 23:15 tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…concerning the prophets.” The person is shifted to better conform with English style, and the phrase “of Jerusalem” is supplied in the translation to avoid the possible misunderstanding that the judgment applies to the prophets of Samaria, who had already been judged long before.
Jeremiah 23:15 tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” For these same words of judgment on another group see 9:15 (9:14 HT). “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.
Jeremiah 23:15 tn The compound preposition מֵאֵת (meʾet) expresses source or origin (see BDB 86 s.v. אֵת 4.c). Context shows that the origin is in their false prophesying, which encourages people in their evil behavior.
Jeremiah 23:15 sn A word that derives from this same Hebrew word is used in v. 11 at the beginning of the Lord’s criticism of the prophet and priest. This is a common rhetorical device for bracketing material that belongs together. The criticism has, however, focused on the false prophets and the judgment due them.
Jeremiah 23:16 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies.”sn See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of this title.
Jeremiah 23:16 tn The words “to the people of Jerusalem” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to reflect the masculine plural form of the imperative and the second masculine plural form of the pronoun. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
Jeremiah 23:16 tn Heb “They tell of a vision of their own heart [= mind] not from the mouth of the Lord.”
Jeremiah 23:17 tn The translation reflects an emphatic construction where the infinitive absolute follows a participle (cf. GKC 343 §113.r).
Jeremiah 23:17 tc The translation follows the Greek version. The Hebrew text reads, “who reject me, ‘The Lord has spoken, “Things…”’” The Greek version is to be preferred here because of (1) the parallelism of the lines “reject what the Lord has said” // “follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts;” (2) the preceding context that speaks of “visions of their own imaginations, not what the Lord has given them;” (3) the following context that denies that they have ever had access to the Lord’s secrets; (4) the general contexts earlier regarding false prophecy where rejection of the Lord’s word is in view (6:14 [see there v. 10]; 8:11 [see there v. 9]); and (5) the meter of the poetic lines (the Hebrew meter is 3/5/4/3; the meter presupposed by the translation is 5/3/4/3 with the 3’s being their words). The difference is one of vocalization of the same consonants. The vocalization of the MT is יְהוָה מְנַאֲצַי דִּבֶּר [m^enaʾatsay dibber y^ehvah]; the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Greek would be vocalized as מְנַאֲצֵי דְּבַר יְהוָה (m^enaʾatse d^evar y^ehvah).
Jeremiah 23:17 tn Heb “You will have peace.” But see the note on 14:13. See also 6:14 and 8:11.
Jeremiah 23:18 tn Or “has been the Lord’s confidant.”sn The Lord’s inner circle refers to the council of angels (Ps 89:7 [89:8 HT]; 1 Kgs 22:19-22; Job 1-2; Job 15:8), where God made known his counsel/plans (Amos 3:7). They and those they prophesied to will find out soon enough what the purposes of his heart are, and they are not “peace” (see v. 20). By their failure to announce the impending doom they were not turning the people away from their wicked course (vv. 21-22).
Jeremiah 23:18 tn The form here is a jussive with a vav of subordination introducing a purpose after a question (cf. GKC 322 §109.f).
Jeremiah 23:18 tc Heb “his word.” In the second instance (“what he has said” at the end of the verse) the translation follows the suggestion of the Masoretes (Qere) and many Hebrew mss rather than the consonantal text (Kethib) of the Leningrad Codex.
Jeremiah 23:19 tn Heb “Behold!”
Jeremiah 23:19 tn The syntax of this line has generally been misunderstood, sometimes to the point that some want to delete the word wrath. Both here and in 30:23, where these same words occur, the word “anger” stands not as an accusative of attendant circumstance but an apposition, giving the intended referent to the figure. Comparison should be made with Jer 25:15 where “this wrath” is appositional to “the cup of wine” (cf. GKC 425 §131.k).
Jeremiah 23:19 tn The translation is deliberate, intending to reflect the repetition of the Hebrew root, which is “swirl/swirling.”
Jeremiah 23:20 tn Heb “until he has acted and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”
Jeremiah 23:20 sn Sometimes the phrase “in future days” may have a remote, even eschatological, reference. At other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in the nearly identical 30:24, where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile. See also the note at Gen 49:1.
Jeremiah 23:20 tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).
Jeremiah 23:21 tn Heb “Yet they ran.”sn The image is that of a messenger bearing news from the king. See 2 Sam 18:19-24; Jer 51:31; Isa 40:9; 52:7; and Hab 2:2 (the tablet/scroll bore the message the runner was to read to the intended recipients of his message). Their message has been given in v. 17 (see notes there for cross references).
Jeremiah 23:22 tn Or “had been my confidant.” See the note on v. 18.

2 Corinthians 8:8-15

⁸I am not saying this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love by comparison with the eagerness of others.^[a] ⁹For you know the grace^[b] of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, he became poor for your sakes, so that you by his poverty could become rich. ¹⁰So here is my opinion on this matter: It is to your advantage, since you^[c] made a good start last year both in your giving and your desire to give, ¹¹to finish what you started,^[d] so that just as you wanted to do it eagerly,^[e] you can also complete it according to your means.^[f] ¹²For if the eagerness is present, the gift itself^[g] is acceptable according to whatever one has, not according to what he does not have. ¹³For I do not say this so there would be relief for others and suffering for you, but as a matter of equality. ¹⁴At the present time, your abundance will meet their need,^[h] so that one day their abundance may also meet your need, and thus there may be equality, ¹⁵as it is written: “The one who gathered^[i] much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”^[j]

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 91[a]

Footnotes

Footnotes

Oracles Against the False Prophets[a]

Footnotes

Footnotes

Psalm 91^[a]

Oracles Against the False Prophets^[a]