Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “The Lilies of the Covenant.” A Psalm by Asaph.

14 Behold, a day of Yahweh comes, when your plunder will be divided within you. ² For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. ³ Then Yahweh will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. ⁴ His feet will stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, making a very great valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half of it toward the south. ⁵ You shall flee by the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azel. Yes, you shall flee, just like you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Yahweh my God will come, and all the holy ones with you.^[a]

⁶ It will happen in that day that there will not be light, cold, or frost. ⁷ It will be a unique day which is known to Yahweh—not day, and not night; but it will come to pass that at evening time there will be light.

⁸ It will happen in that day that living waters will go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea. It will be so in summer and in winter.

⁹ Yahweh will be King over all the earth. In that day Yahweh will be one, and his name one.

4 Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more. ² For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, ⁴ that each one of you know how to control his own body^[a] in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God, ⁶ that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. ⁷ For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. ⁸ Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.

⁹ But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, ¹⁰ for indeed you do it toward all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brothers, that you abound more and more; ¹¹ and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you, ¹² that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.

¹³ But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. ¹⁵ For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first, ¹⁷ then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore comfort one another with these words.