Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

^2 (1) God, we heard it with our ears;
our fathers told us about it —
a deed which you did in their days,
back in days of old.
^3 (2) With your hand you drove out nations
to plant them in [the land],
you crushed peoples
to make room for them.

^4 (3) For not by their own swords
did they conquer the land,
nor did their own arm
give them victory;
rather, it was your right hand,
your arm and the light of your face;
because you favored them.
^5 (4) God, you are my king;
command complete victory for Ya‘akov.

^6 (5) Through you we pushed away our foes,
through your name we trampled down our assailants.
^7 (6) For I don’t rely on my bow,
nor can my sword give me victory.
^8 (7) No, you saved us from our adversaries;
you put to shame those who hate us.
^9 (8) We will boast in our God all day
and give thanks to your name forever. (Selah)

^10 (9) Yet now you have thrust us aside and disgraced us;
you don’t march out with our armies.
^11 (10) You make us retreat from the adversary,
and those who hate us plunder us at will.
^12 (11) You have handed us over like sheep to be eaten
and scattered us among the nations.
^13 (12) You sell your people for a pittance,
you don’t even profit on the sale.
^14 (13) You make us an object for our neighbors to mock,
one of scorn and derision to those around us.
^15 (14) You make us a byword among the nations;
the peoples jeer at us, shaking their heads.

^16 (15) All day long my disgrace is on my mind,
and shame has covered my face
^17 (16) at the sound of those who revile and insult,
at the sight of the enemy bent on revenge.
^18 (17) Though all this came on us, we did not forget you;
we have not been false to your covenant;
^19 (18) Our hearts have not turned back,
and our steps did not turn away from your path,
^20 (19) though you pressed us into a lair of jackals
and covered us with death-dark gloom.
^21 (20) If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
^22 (21) wouldn’t God have discovered this,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
^23 (22) For your sake we are put to death all day long,
we are considered sheep to be slaughtered.

^24 (23) Wake up, Adonai! Why are you asleep?
Rouse yourself! Don’t thrust us off forever.
^25 (24) Why are you turning your face away,
forgetting our pain and misery?
^26 (25) For we are lying flat in the dust,
our bodies cling to the ground.
^27 (26) Get up, and come to help us!
For the sake of your grace, redeem us!

6 Come, let us return to Adonai;
for he has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck, and he will bind our wounds.
² After two days, he will revive us;
on the third day, he will raise us up;
and we will live in his presence.
³ Let us know, let us strive to know Adonai.
That he will come is as certain as morning;
he will come to us like the rain,
like the spring rains that water the earth.
⁴ “Efrayim, what should I do to you?
Y’hudah, what should I do to you?
For your ‘faithful love’ is like a morning cloud,
like dew that disappears quickly.
⁵ This is why I have cut them to pieces by the prophets,
slaughtered them with the words from my mouth —
the judgment on you shines out like light.
⁶ For what I desire is mercy, not sacrifices,
knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

⁷ “But they, just like men, have broken the covenant,
they have been faithless in dealing with me.
⁸ Gil‘ad is a city of criminals,
covered with bloody footprints;
⁹ just as bands of robbers wait to ambush someone,
so does a gang of cohanim.
They commit murder on the road to Sh’khem!
Their conduct is an outrage!
¹⁰ In the house of Isra’el
I have seen a horrible thing;
whoring is found there in Efrayim,
Isra’el is defiled.

“Look, I am laying in Tziyon
a stone that will make people stumble,
a rock that will trip them up.
But he who rests his trust on it
will not be humiliated.”^[b]