Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

3 He showed me Y’hoshua the cohen hagadol standing before the angel of Adonai, with the Accuser ^[a] standing at his right to accuse him. ² Adonai said to the Accuser, “May Adonai rebuke you, Accuser! Indeed, may Adonai, who has made Yerushalayim his choice, rebuke you! Isn’t this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” ³ Y’hoshua was clothed in garments covered with dung; and he was standing before the angel, ⁴ who said to those standing in front of him, “Take those filthy garments off of him.” Then to him he said, “See, I am taking your guilt away. I will clothe you in fine robes.” ⁵ I said, “They should put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and gave him fine robes to wear, while the angel of Adonai stood by. ⁶ Then the angel of Adonai gave Y’hoshua this warning: ⁷ “Adonai-Tzva’ot says this: ‘If you will walk in my ways, obey my commission, judge my house and guard my courtyards; then I will give you free access among these who are standing here. ⁸ Listen, cohen gadol Y’hoshua, both you and your colleagues seated here before you, because these men are a sign that I am going to bring my servant Tzemach [Sprout]. ⁹ For look at the stone I have put in front of Y’hoshua: on one stone are seven eyes; I will engrave what is to be written on it,’ says Adonai-Tzva’ot; ‘and I will remove the guilt of this land in one day. ¹⁰ When that time comes,’ says Adonai-Tzva’ot, ‘you will all invite each other to join you under your vines and fig trees.’”

⁴ For God did not spare the angels who sinned; on the contrary, he put them in gloomy dungeons lower than Sh’ol to be held for judgment. ⁵ And he did not spare the ancient world; on the contrary, he preserved Noach, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, and brought the Flood upon a world of ungodly people. ⁶ And he condemned the cities of S’dom and ‘Amora, reducing them to ashes and ruin, as a warning to those in the future who would live ungodly lives; ⁷ but he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was distressed by the debauchery of those unprincipled people; ⁸ for the wicked deeds which that righteous man saw and heard, as he lived among them, tormented his righteous heart day after day. ⁹ So the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and how to hold the wicked until the Day of Judgment while continuing to punish them, ¹⁰ especially those who follow their old natures in lust for filth and who despise authority.

Presumptuous and self-willed, these false teachers do not tremble at insulting angelic beings; ¹¹ whereas angels, though stronger and more powerful, do not bring before the Lord an insulting charge against them. ¹² But these people, acting without thinking, like animals without reason, born to be captured and destroyed, insult things about which they have no knowledge. When they are destroyed, their destruction will be total — ¹³ they will be paid back harm as wages for the harm they are doing.

Their idea of pleasure is carousing in broad daylight; they are spots and defects reveling in their deceptions as they share meals with you — ¹⁴ for they have eyes always on the lookout for a woman who will commit adultery, eyes that never stop sinning; and they have a heart that has exercised itself in greed; so that they seduce unstable people. What a cursed brood!

¹⁵ These people have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Bil‘am Ben-B‘or, who loved the wages of doing harm ¹⁶ but was rebuked for his sin — a dumb beast of burden spoke out with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s insanity! ¹⁷ Waterless springs they are, mists driven by a gust of wind; for them has been reserved the blackest darkness. ¹⁸ Mouthing grandiosities of nothingness, they play on the desires of the old nature, in order to seduce with debaucheries people who have just begun to escape from those whose way of life is wrong.

¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for a person is slave to whatever has defeated him. ²⁰ Indeed, if they have once escaped the pollutions of the world through knowing our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah, and then have again become entangled and defeated by them, their latter condition has become worse than their former. ²¹ It would have been better for them not to have known the Way of righteousness than, fully knowing, to turn from the holy command delivered to them.