Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

17 I am pleading for your help, O Lord; for I have been honest and have done what is right, and you must listen to my earnest cry! ² Publicly acquit me, Lord, for you are always fair. ³ You have tested me and seen that I am good. You have come even in the night and found nothing amiss and know that I have told the truth. ⁴ I have followed your commands and have not gone along with cruel and evil men. ⁵ My feet have not slipped from your paths.

⁶ Why am I praying like this? Because I know you will answer me, O God! Yes, listen as I pray. ⁷ Show me your strong love in wonderful ways, O Savior of all those seeking your help against their foes. ⁸ Protect me as you would the pupil of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings as you hover over me.

⁹ My enemies encircle me with murder in their eyes. ¹⁰ They are pitiless and arrogant. Listen to their boasting. ¹¹ They close in upon me and are ready to throw me to the ground. ¹² They are like lions eager to tear me apart, like young lions hiding and waiting their chance.

^13-14 Lord, arise and stand against them. Push them back! Come and save me from these men of the world whose only concern is earthly gain—these men whom you have filled with your treasures so that their children and grandchildren are rich and prosperous.

¹⁵ But as for me, my contentment is not in wealth but in seeing you and knowing all is well between us. And when I awake in heaven, I will be fully satisfied, for I will see you face-to-face.

3 Then the Angel showed me (in my vision) Joshua the High Priest standing before the Angel of the Lord; and Satan was there too, at the Angel’s right hand, accusing Joshua of many things.

² And the Lord said to Satan, “I reject your accusations, Satan;^[a] yes, I, the Lord, for I have decided to be merciful to Jerusalem—I rebuke you. I have decreed mercy to Joshua and his nation; they are like a burning stick pulled out of the fire.”

³ Joshua’s clothing was filthy as he stood before the Angel of the Lord.

⁴ Then the Angel said to the others standing there, “Remove his filthy clothing.” And turning to Joshua he said, “See, I have taken away your sins, and now I am giving you these fine new clothes.”

^5-6 Then I said, “Please, could he also have a clean turban on his head?” So they gave him one.

Then the Angel of the Lord spoke very solemnly to Joshua and said, ⁷ “The Lord Almighty declares: ‘If you will follow the paths I set for you and do all I tell you to, then I will put you in charge of my Temple, to keep it holy; and I will let you walk in and out of my presence with these angels. ⁸ Listen to me, O Joshua the High Priest, and all you other priests, you are illustrations of the good things to come. Don’t you see?—Joshua represents my servant the Branch^[b] whom I will send. ⁹ He will be the Foundation Stone of the Temple that Joshua is standing beside, and I will engrave this inscription on it seven times:^[c] I will remove the sins of this land in a single day. ¹⁰ And after that,’ the Lord Almighty declares, ‘you will all live in peace and prosperity, and each of you will own a home of your own where you can invite your neighbors.’”

⁴ For God did not spare even the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell, chained in gloomy caves and darkness until the judgment day. ⁵ And he did not spare any of the people who lived in ancient times before the flood except Noah, the one man who spoke up for God, and his family of seven. At that time God completely destroyed the whole world of ungodly men with the vast flood. ⁶ Later, he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into heaps of ashes and blotted them off the face of the earth, making them an example for all the ungodly in the future to look back upon and fear.

^7-8 But at the same time the Lord rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a good man, sick of the terrible wickedness he saw everywhere around him day after day. ⁹ So also the Lord can rescue you and me from the temptations that surround us, and continue to punish the ungodly until the day of final judgment comes. ¹⁰ He is especially hard on those who follow their own evil, lustful thoughts, and those who are proud and willful, daring even to scoff at the Glorious Ones^[a] without so much as trembling, ¹¹ although the angels in heaven who stand in the very presence of the Lord, and are far greater in power and strength than these false teachers, never speak out disrespectfully against these evil Mighty Ones.

¹² But false teachers are fools—no better than animals. They do whatever they feel like; born only to be caught and killed, they laugh at the terrifying powers of the underworld which they know so little about;^[b] and they will be destroyed along with all the demons and powers of hell.

¹³ That is the pay these teachers will have for their sin. For they live in evil pleasures day after day. They are a disgrace and a stain among you, deceiving you by living in foul sin on the side while they join your love feasts as though they were honest men. ¹⁴ No woman can escape their sinful stare, and of adultery they never have enough. They make a game of luring unstable women. They train themselves to be greedy; and are doomed and cursed. ¹⁵ They have gone off the road and become lost like Balaam, the son of Beor, who fell in love with the money he could make by doing wrong; ¹⁶ but Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey spoke to him with a human voice, scolding and rebuking him.

¹⁷ These men are as useless as dried-up springs of water, promising much and delivering nothing; they are as unstable as clouds driven by the storm winds. They are doomed to the eternal pits of darkness. ¹⁸ They proudly boast about their sins and conquests, and, using lust as their bait, they lure back into sin those who have just escaped from such wicked living.

¹⁹ “You aren’t saved by being good,” they say, “so you might as well be bad. Do what you like; be free.”

But these very teachers who offer this “freedom” from law are themselves slaves to sin and destruction. For a man is a slave to whatever controls him. ²⁰ And when a person has escaped from the wicked ways of the world by learning about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then gets tangled up with sin and becomes its slave again, he is worse off than he was before. ²¹ It would be better if he had never known about Christ at all than to learn of him and then afterwards turn his back on the holy commandments that were given to him.