Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
This is a psalm that the sons of Korah wrote.
Zion is God's city
48 The Lord is great.
He deserves that people praise him
in the city of our God,
on his holy mountain.
2 That place is high up and it is beautiful.
It brings joy to the whole world.
Mount Zion is the city of the great King.
It is where the true God lives.[a]
3 God is there in its strong places
and he keeps the city safe.
4 Look! There are kings of other nations
who join together to attack our city.
5 But when they come near and they see it,
they are very surprised.
It frightens them so much
that they quickly run away!
6 They cannot stop themselves shaking,
like a woman who is giving birth to a baby!
7 You push them away,
like an east wind that destroys great ships.
8 We had heard about the great things that God has done.
Now we have seen them for ourselves,
here in the city of the Lord Almighty,
the city of our God.
It is God who keeps the city safe for ever!
Selah.
9 When we are in your temple, God,
we think about your faithful love.
10 You are famous all over the world,
so that people praise you as you deserve.
You are powerful
and you rule with justice.
11 Because you judge people in a right way,
Mount Zion and all the towns of Judah will be happy.
12 Walk all round Zion and look at it.
Count the towers.
13 Look at its strong buildings and its strong walls.
Then you will be able to describe it to your children.[b]
14 Yes, this is our God, who is with us for ever!
He will always be our guide.
14 Then the Lord gave this message to me: 15 ‘Son of man, listen to what the people of Jerusalem are saying about you, your brothers and your relatives. They say this about all the people of Israel who are now in Babylon. They are saying, “Those people have gone far away from the Lord. So now this land belongs to us and we can keep it.”
16 So say this: “This is what the Almighty Lord says. I removed my people from their own land and I sent them far away. I sent them to live among other nations and in other countries. But I am still near to them in the countries where they have gone.”
17 Then say, “This is what the Almighty Lord says. I will fetch you from the places where you have been living. I will bring you back together from those countries. I will give the land of Israel back to you.”
18 The people will return to their land. Then they will destroy their idols and other disgusting things. 19 I will give them new thoughts so that they will choose to worship only me. I will put a new spirit in them. They will no longer refuse to change their way of life. Instead, I will help them to want to obey me. 20 Then they will know my rules and my laws. They will be careful to obey them. They will be my people and I will be their God. 21 But it will be different for those who continue to worship their disgusting idols. I will punish them as they deserve because of the evil things that they have done. That is what the Almighty Lord says.’
22 Then the cherubs lifted up their wings to fly. The wheels were at their sides. And the bright glory of Israel's God was above them. 23 The glory of the Lord rose up and it went away from the city. It stopped over a mountain on the east side of the city.
24 In the vision, a spirit lifted me up and took me back to Babylon. I returned to the Israelites who were prisoners there. That was the end of the vision.
25 I told the Israelites everything that the Lord had shown me in the vision.
12 We have received God's own Spirit, not a spirit that belongs to this world. As a result, we can understand all the good things that God has given to us. 13 Those are the things that we speak about. We do not use clever words to speak about human ideas. Instead, we speak the message that God's Spirit has taught us. In that way, we explain a spiritual message to people who have God's Spirit.
14 If someone does not believe in God, they cannot accept the message that comes from God's Spirit. They think that God's message is silly. They cannot even understand those things. Only God's Spirit can explain them to people. 15 But we have God's Spirit with us. So we can understand the true value of all things. But other people cannot truly understand us, who belong to God. 16 As it says in the Bible:
‘Nobody can know what the Lord God is thinking.
Nobody can tell him what he should do.’[a]
But we think about these things in the same way that Christ thinks.
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