Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

7 I am depending on you, O Lord my God, to save me from my persecutors. ² Don’t let them pounce upon me as a lion would and maul me and drag me away with no one to rescue me. ³ It would be different, Lord, if I were doing evil things— ⁴ if I were paying back evil for good or unjustly attacking those I dislike. ⁵ Then it would be right for you to let my enemies destroy me, crush me to the ground, and trample my life in the dust.

⁶ But Lord! Arise in anger against the anger of my enemies. Awake! Demand justice for me, Lord! ^7-8 Gather all peoples before you; sit high above them, judging their sins. But justify me publicly; establish my honor and truth before them all. ⁹ End all wickedness, O Lord, and bless all who truly worship God;^[a] for you, the righteous God, look deep within the hearts of men and examine all their motives and their thoughts.

¹⁰ God is my shield; he will defend me. He saves those whose hearts and lives are true and right.^[b]

¹¹ God is a judge who is perfectly fair, and he is angry with the wicked every day. ¹² Unless they repent, he will sharpen his sword and slay them.

He has bent and strung his bow ¹³ and fitted it with deadly arrows made from shafts of fire.

¹⁴ The wicked man conceives an evil plot, labors with its dark details, and brings to birth his treachery and lies; ¹⁵ let him fall into his own trap. ¹⁶ May the violence he plans for others boomerang upon himself; let him die.

¹⁷ Oh, how grateful and thankful I am to the Lord because he is so good. I will sing praise to the name of the Lord who is above all lords.

⁶ “I sent you hunger,” says the Lord, “but it did no good; you still would not return to me. ⁷ I ruined your crops by holding back the rain three months before the harvest. I sent rain on one city but not another. While rain fell on one field, another was dry and withered. ⁸ People from two or three cities would make their weary journey for a drink of water to a city that had rain, but there wasn’t ever enough. Yet you wouldn’t return to me,” says the Lord.

⁹ “I sent blight and mildew on your farms and your vineyards; the locusts ate your figs and olive trees. And still you wouldn’t return to me,” says the Lord. ¹⁰ “I sent you plagues like those of Egypt long ago. I killed your lads in war and drove away your horses. The stench of death was terrible to smell. And yet you refused to come. ¹¹ I destroyed some of your cities, as I did Sodom and Gomorrah; those left are like half-burned firebrands snatched away from fire. And still you won’t return to me,” says the Lord.

¹² “Therefore, I will bring upon you all these further evils I have spoken of. Prepare to meet your God in judgment, Israel. ¹³ For you are dealing with the One who formed the mountains, made the winds, and knows your every thought; he turns the morning to darkness and crushes down the mountains underneath his feet: Jehovah, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is his name.”

¹¹ for the message to us from the beginning has been that we should love one another.

¹² We are not to be like Cain, who belonged to Satan and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing wrong and he knew very well that his brother’s life was better than his. ¹³ So don’t be surprised, dear friends, if the world hates you.

¹⁴ If we love other Christians, it proves that we have been delivered from hell and given eternal life. But a person who doesn’t have love for others is headed for eternal death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates his Christian brother is really a murderer at heart; and you know that no one wanting to murder has eternal life within. ¹⁶ We know what real love is from Christ’s example in dying for us. And so we also ought to lay down our lives for our Christian brothers.

¹⁷ But if someone who is supposed to be a Christian has money enough to live well, and sees a brother in need, and won’t help him—how can God’s love be within him?