Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Trouble will come to Israel's people

⁴ So listen to me, you who are cruel to helpless people. You try to destroy people who are poor and weak. ⁵ You say to yourselves, ‘We want the new moon festival to finish so that we can sell food again. We want our Sabbath day of rest to finish so that we can sell grain.’ But when you sell things, you cheat the people who buy from you. You deceive them with false weights, and you make the price too high. ⁶ When poor people cannot pay their debts, you buy them as your slaves. You pay a silver coin to buy them, which would not even buy a pair of shoes. You also mix dust with the grain that you sell.

⁷ The Lord has promised this: ‘You proud descendants of Jacob, I will never forget the wrong things that you have done. ⁸ The whole country will shake because of your sins. Everyone who lives there will weep. The ground will rise up, like the floods of the Nile river in Egypt. Then it will go down again, like the water of the Nile.’

⁹ The Lord God says, ‘At that time, I will make the sun go down at noon. I will make the earth become dark in the daytime. ¹⁰ Your parties will become funerals. You will not sing happy songs but you will weep. You will wear rough clothes and you will cut off all your hair. You will be as sad as if your only son had died. That will be a very bad day for you.’

¹¹ The Lord God says, ‘Listen to me! At that time, I will cause you to be very hungry. It will not be because you need food and water. Instead, everyone in the land will want to hear a message from me. ¹² People will travel everywhere in the country, north and south, east and west. They will want to hear a message from the Lord, but there will be nothing for them to hear.

9 I do not need to write to you about the money that you want to send to God's people in Jerusalem. ² I know that you want to help very much. I have told the believers in Macedonia how good you are. I tell them that you believers in Achaia have been ready to give your money since last year. Because you are so ready to help, most of them now also want to help. ³ But I do not want the way that I have praised you not to be true. So I am sending these men, our Christian friends, to come to you. I want to be sure that you will be ready to give your money. That is what I have told people about you.

⁴ Perhaps some believers from Macedonia might come with me. If you are not ready when we come, we would be ashamed. We would be ashamed because we trusted you. And I think that you would be ashamed as well! ⁵ So I decided to tell these men to visit you before I come myself. They will help you to prepare the gift that you promised. Then it will be ready when I arrive. Everyone will know that you really wanted to give this gift. Nobody has made you give it.

It is good to give as much as you can

⁶ Remember this: If a farmer plants only a few seeds, he will not get much as a result. But if he plants plenty of seeds, he will get a big harvest. ⁷ Each of you should think carefully and then decide how much you can give. Then you will not be sad to give that money. Nobody has made you give it. God loves someone who is happy to give help to other people.

⁸ Since God loves you, he is able to give you more than you need. You will always have every good thing that you need for yourselves. And you will have enough to do many good things to help other people. ⁹ The Bible says this about someone who helps other people:

¹⁰ It is God who supplies seeds for the farmer to plant. It is God who supplies bread for food. God will help you in the same way. He will give you plenty of things so that you can help other people. You will be like a farmer who plants many seeds. And God will cause those seeds to grow. There will be many good results from the help that you give to other people. That will be like a great harvest. ¹¹ God will make you rich with many good things. As a result, you will always be able to give plenty to other people. Many people will thank God because of your gifts that we take to them.

¹² This good work that you are doing is helping God's people. It is helping to supply what they need. And it is not only doing that. It is also causing many people to thank God very much. ¹³ Your gift of money will show people that you really want to help. People will say that God is great. They will see that you want to obey God. They will see that you are happy to give to them, and to everyone else. They will see that you really believe the good news about Christ, as you say you do. ¹⁴ They will want to thank you. They will pray to God for you. They will do that because they see how very kind God has been to you.

¹⁵ Yes, we should all thank God for his very great gift.^[b] That gift is too great to describe it with words!