Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁶⁸ Zacharias: May the Lord God of Israel be blessed indeed!
        For God’s intervention has begun,
        and He has moved to rescue us, the people of God.
⁶⁹     And the Lord has raised up a powerful sign of liberation for us
        from among the descendants of God’s servant, King David.
⁷⁰     As was prophesied through the mouths of His holy prophets in ancient times:
⁷¹     God will liberate us from our enemies
        and from the hand of our oppressors!^[a]

^72-74     God will show mercy promised to our ancestors,
        upholding the abiding covenant He made with them,
    Remembering the original vow He swore to Abraham,
        from whom we are all descended.
    God will rescue us from the grasp of our enemies
        so that we may serve Him without fear all our days
⁷⁵     In holiness and justice, in the presence of the Lord.

⁷⁶     And you, my son, will be called the prophet of the Most High.
        For you will be the one to prepare the way for the Lord^[b]
77     So that the Lord’s people will receive knowledge of their freedom
        through the forgiveness of their sins.

⁷⁸     All this will flow from the kind and compassionate mercy of our God.
        A new day is dawning:
        the Sunrise from the heavens will break through in our darkness,
⁷⁹     And those who huddle in night,
        those who sit in the shadow of death,
    Will be able to rise and walk in the light,^[c]
        guided in the pathway of peace.

¹⁸ So this is what the Eternal says
    regarding Jehoiakim (son of Josiah), king of Judah:

Eternal One: Upon his death, no one in his family will weep and say,
        “Oh my brother, oh my sister—our loved one is gone.”
    Nor will any of his subjects weep and say,
        “Our leader is gone; our great king is gone.”
¹⁹     No, he will be buried like a dead donkey—his body dragged away
        and dumped outside Jerusalem’s gates in the trash heap.

²⁰     (to Jerusalem) Go to the mountains of Lebanon and cry out.
        Run to Bashan and the peaks of Abarim, and cry out loudly
    Because all of your lovers have been destroyed.
²¹     I warned you when things were going well,
        but you said to Me, “I will not listen.”
    You have treated Me this way since the days of your youth;
        you have never listened to My voice.
²²     All your shepherds will be driven away by the wind,
        and your lovers will be led into captivity.
    In that moment, you will be covered with shame,
        humiliated because of your evil ways.
²³     You who live in Lebanon,
        safe and nestled among the cedars—
    How you will cry in anguish when the judgment comes,
        like the anguish and pain of a woman giving birth.

²⁸ Is this man, Coniah, a broken and worthless pot?
    Is he like something tossed on the garbage heap that no one wants?
Why are he and his children being thrown out—
    no, hurled out into a foreign land?
²⁹ O land, land, land!
    You must hear the word of the Eternal!

³⁰ Eternal One: Write in the record that this man is childless and disgraced.
        As long as he lives, none of his children will succeed him
    And sit on the throne of David
        and rule over Judah again.