Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Book Five

Psalm 107

¹ O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever!

² Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has delivered from the hand of the adversary,

³ And gathered them out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the [Red] Sea in the south.

⁴ Some wandered in the wilderness in a solitary desert track; they found no city for habitation.

⁵ Hungry and thirsty, they fainted; their lives were near to being extinguished.

⁶ Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses.

⁷ He led them forth by the straight and right way, that they might go to a city where they could establish their homes.

⁸ Oh, that men would praise [and confess to] the Lord for His goodness and loving-kindness and His wonderful works to the children of men!

⁹ For He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with good.

⁴³ Whoso is wise [if there be any truly wise] will observe and heed these things; and they will diligently consider the mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord.

9 Rejoice not, O Israel, with exultation as do the peoples, for you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved [a harlot’s] hire upon every threshing floor [ascribing the harvest to the Baals instead of to God].

² The threshing floor and the winevat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.

³ They shall not remain in the Lord’s land, but Ephraim shall return to [another] Egypt and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria.^(A)

⁴ They shall not pour out wine offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing to Him. Their sacrifices shall be to them as the bread of mourners; all who eat of them shall be defiled, for their bread shall be [only] for their appetite; it shall not come into the house of the Lord [to be offered first to Him].

⁵ What will you do on the day of the appointed solemn assembly or festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord [when you are in exile]?

⁶ For behold, they are gone away from devastation and destruction; Egypt shall gather them in; Memphis shall bury them. Their precious things of silver shall be in the possession of nettles; thorns shall be [growing] in their tents.

⁷ The days of visitation and punishment have come; the days of recompense have come; Israel shall know it. The prophet is [considered] a crazed fool and the man who is inspired is [treated as if] mad or a fanatic, because of the abundance of your iniquity and because the enmity, hostility, and persecution are great.^(B)

⁸ Ephraim was [intended to be] a watchman with my God [and a prophet to the surrounding nations]; but he, that prophet, has become a fowler’s snare in all his ways. There is enmity, hostility, and persecution in the house of his God.

⁹ They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah. The Lord will [earnestly] remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.^(C)

¹⁰ I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first ripe fruit on the fig tree in its first season, but they went to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to that shameful thing [Baal], and they became detestable and loathsome like that which they loved.

¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird; there shall be no birth, no being with child, and [because of their impurity] no becoming pregnant.

¹² Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them so that not a man shall be left; yes, woe also to them when I look away and depart from them!

¹³ Ephraim, as I have seen with Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place, but Ephraim shall bring out his children to the slayer.

¹⁴ Give them [their due], O Lord! [But] what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

¹⁵ All their wickedness [says the Lord] is focused in Gilgal, for there I hated them; for the wickedness of their [idolatrous] doings I will drive them out of My house [the Holy Land]; I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.^(D)

¹⁶ Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Yes, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even their beloved children.

¹⁷ My God will cast them away because they did not listen to and obey Him, and they shall be wanderers and fugitives among the nations.

¹⁷ So this I say and solemnly testify in [the name of] the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the heathen (the Gentiles) do in their perverseness [in the folly, vanity, and emptiness of their souls and the futility] of their minds.

¹⁸ Their ^[a]moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. [They are] alienated (estranged, self-banished) from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the ignorance (the want of knowledge and perception, the willful blindness) that is ^[b]deep-seated in them, due to their hardness of heart [to the insensitiveness of their moral nature].

¹⁹ In their spiritual apathy they have become callous and past feeling and reckless and have abandoned themselves [a prey] to unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity [that their depraved desires may suggest and demand].

²⁰ But you did not so learn Christ!

²¹ Assuming that you have really heard Him and been taught by Him, as [all] Truth is in Jesus [embodied and personified in Him],

²² Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion;

²³ And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude],

²⁴ And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness.