Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

74 O God, why have you cast us away forever? Why is your anger hot against us—the sheep of your own pasture? ² Remember that we are your people—the ones you chose in ancient times from slavery and made the choicest of your possessions. You chose Jerusalem^[a] as your home on earth!

³ Walk through the awful ruins of the city and see what the enemy has done to your sanctuary. ⁴ There they shouted their battle cry and erected their idols to flaunt their victory. ^5-6 Everything lies in shambles like a forest chopped to the ground. They came with their axes and sledgehammers and smashed and chopped the carved paneling; ⁷ they set the sanctuary on fire, and razed it to the ground—your sanctuary, Lord. ⁸ “Let’s wipe out every trace of God,” they said, and went through the entire country burning down the assembly places where we worshiped you.

^9-10 There is nothing left to show that we are your people. The prophets are gone, and who can say when it all will end? How long, O God, will you allow our enemies to dishonor your name? Will you let them get away with this forever? ¹¹ Why do you delay? Why hold back your power? Unleash your fist and give them a final blow.

¹² God is my King from ages past; you have been actively helping me everywhere throughout the land. ^13-14 You divided the Red Sea with your strength; you crushed the sea god’s heads! You gave him to the desert tribes to eat! ¹⁵ At your command the springs burst forth to give your people water; and then you dried a path for them across the ever-flowing Jordan. ¹⁶ Day and night alike belong to you; you made the starlight and the sun. ¹⁷ All nature is within your hands; you make the summer and the winter too. ¹⁸ Lord, see how these enemies scoff at you. O Jehovah, an arrogant nation has blasphemed your name.

¹⁹ O Lord, save me! Protect your turtledove from the hawks.^[b] Save your beloved people from these beasts. ²⁰ Remember your promise! For the land is full of darkness and cruel men. ²¹ O Lord, don’t let your downtrodden people be constantly insulted. Give cause for these poor and needy ones to praise your name! ²² Arise, O God, and state your case against our enemies. Remember the insults these rebels have hurled against you all day long. ²³ Don’t overlook the cursing of these enemies of yours; it grows louder and louder.

27 In that day the Lord will take his terrible, swift sword and punish leviathan, the swiftly moving serpent, the coiling, writhing serpent, the dragon of the sea.

² In that day of Israel’s freedom^[a] let this anthem be their song:

³ Israel^[b] is my vineyard; I, the Lord, will tend the fruitful vines; every day I’ll water them, and day and night I’ll watch to keep all enemies away. ^4-5 My anger against Israel is gone. If I find thorns and briars bothering her, I will burn them up, unless these enemies of mine surrender and beg for peace and my protection. ⁶ The time will come when Israel will take root and bud and blossom and fill the whole earth with her fruit!

^7-8 Has God punished Israel as much as he has punished her enemies? No, for he has devastated her enemies,^[c] while he has punished Israel but a little, exiling her far from her own land as though blown away in a storm from the east. ⁹ And why did God do it? It was to purge away^[d] her sins, to rid her of all her idol altars and her idols. They will never be worshiped again. ¹⁰ Her walled cities will be silent and empty, houses abandoned, streets grown up with grass, cows grazing through the city munching on twigs and branches.

¹¹ My people are like the dead branches of a tree, broken off and used to burn beneath the pots. They are a foolish nation, a witless, stupid people, for they turn away from God. Therefore, he who made them will not have pity on them or show them his mercy. ¹² Yet the time will come when the Lord will gather them together one by one like hand-picked grain, selecting them here and there from his great threshing floor that reaches all the way from the Euphrates River to the Egyptian boundary. ¹³ In that day the great trumpet will be blown, and many about to perish among their enemies, Assyria and Egypt, will be rescued and brought back to Jerusalem to worship the Lord in his holy mountain.

⁴⁵ Then he entered the Temple and began to drive out the merchants from their stalls, ⁴⁶ saying to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple is a place of prayer; but you have turned it into a den of thieves.’”

⁴⁷ After that he taught daily in the Temple, but the chief priests and other religious leaders and the business community^[a] were trying to find some way to get rid of him. ⁴⁸ But they could think of nothing, for he was a hero to the people—they hung on every word he said.