Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A song to sing as we climb.
125 People who trust in the Lord are strong,
like Mount Zion.[a]
Nothing can shake it. It will always be there.
2 The Lord is always near to his people,
like the mountains round Jerusalem.
He keeps his people safe, now and for ever.[b]
3 Wicked people will not rule over God's own people.
They will not rule the land where righteous people live.
If they did, the righteous people might also do bad things.
4 Lord, please do good things to good, honest people.
Be kind to those who follow your good ways.
5 But as for people who follow their own bad ways,
Lord, please remove them!
Take them away, along with people who do evil things.
May Israel have peace!
The great day of the Lord
16 Then the people who respected the Lord talked to each other. The Lord listened to what they said. While the Lord watched, someone wrote names on a scroll. Those were the names of the people who worshipped the Lord and respected the Lord's name. They wrote down their names so that people would remember them.
17 The Lord Almighty says, ‘These people will belong to me. One day I will come to judge everyone. At that time I will bring together all my own special people. I will not punish them. I will take care of them, like a father takes care of his son who serves him. 18 Because of that, you will see again that I am kind to good people, but I punish wicked people. I show the difference between people who serve me well and those who do not.’
4 ‘The great day when I come to judge people will certainly happen. Punishment will come like the great fire of a hot oven. It will destroy all the proud people who do evil things. It will completely destroy them, like a fire that destroys dry grass. Nothing will remain.’
That is what the Lord Almighty says.
2 ‘But it will be different for you who respect my name. My power to make you well again will come to you. It will be like the sun that rises to shine on you. When that happens, you will be very happy. You will jump up and down like young cows when someone lets them go free.[a] 3 Then you will walk over the wicked people. They will be like ashes under your feet. That will happen on the day when I do these things.’
That is what the Lord Almighty says.
4 ‘Remember the rules that I gave to my servant Moses at Sinai mountain. Those rules and laws were for all the Israelites to obey.[b]
5 Look! I will send my prophet Elijah to you.[c] He will come before that great day of the Lord arrives. That will be a day that makes people afraid. 6 He will speak my message, so that fathers and their children return together to me.[d] Then I will not have to come and bring punishment on the land.’
9 While they were walking down the mountain, Jesus said to the three disciples, ‘You must not tell anyone now about the things that you have just seen. One day the Son of Man will become alive again after his death. Then you can tell people about these things.’ 10 The three disciples kept these words secret. But they talked together about the words, ‘become alive again after his death’. They asked each other, ‘What does this mean?’
11 Then the three disciples asked Jesus, ‘Why do the teachers of God's Law say that God's prophet Elijah must return first, before the Messiah comes?’
12 Jesus said to them, ‘Elijah does come first. He makes everything ready. But what is written in the Bible about the Son of Man? It says that people will cause him to suffer a lot. They will think that he is nothing.[a] 13 But I tell you that Elijah has already come.[b] People did to him everything that they wanted to do. The Bible already showed that those things would happen to him.’
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