Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 99
1 The Lord reigns;
let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned between the cherubim;
let the earth shake.
2 The Lord is great in Zion;
He is high above all the peoples.
3 Let them praise Your great and awesome name—
He is holy!
4 The King’s strength loves justice;
You establish righteousness,
and You execute judgment
and fairness in Jacob.
5 Exalt the Lord our God,
and worship at His footstool—
He is holy!
6 Moses and Aaron were among His priests,
even Samuel was among them who called upon His name;
they called upon the Lord,
and He answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud;
they kept His statues and the ordinance that He gave them.
8 You answered them,
O Lord our God;
You were a God who forgave them,
though You took vengeance on their wrongdoing.
9 Exalt the Lord our God,
and worship at His holy mountain;
for the Lord our God is holy!
11 Then Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the boy ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest.
Wicked Sons of Eli
12 Now the sons of Eli were corrupt. They did not know the Lord. 13 The priest’s custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant came while the flesh was cooking with a three-pronged fork in his hand. 14 And he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot, and all that the fork brought up the priest took for himself. This they did in Shiloh to all the children of Israel who came there. 15 Even before they burned the fat, the priest’s servant would come and say to the man sacrificing, “Give meat for the priest to roast. For he will not take boiled meat from you, but only raw.”
16 If any man said to him, “Let them first burn the fat and then take as much as you wish,” then he would answer him, “No, but you will give it to me now, and if not, I will take it by force.”
17 Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord. For the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.
Wrath and Mercy of God
19 You will then say to me, “Why does He yet find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20 Rather, O man, who are you to answer back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does the potter not have power over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He previously prepared for glory, 24 even us, whom He has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed He says in Hosea:
“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’
and her who was not beloved, ‘Beloved,’ ”[a]
26 and,
“In the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
there they shall be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”[b]
27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the children of Israel be like the sand of the sea,
a remnant shall be saved.[c]
28 For He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness,
because the Lord will make a quick work upon the earth.”[d]
29 And as Isaiah previously said:
“Unless the Lord of Hosts
had left us a seed,
we would have become like Sodom,
and been made like Gomorrah.”[e]
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.