Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
10 Lord, why are you standing aloof and far away? Why do you hide when I need you the most?
2 Come and deal with all these proud and wicked men who viciously persecute the poor. Pour upon these men the evil they planned for others! 3 For these men brag of all their evil lusts; they revile God and congratulate those the Lord abhors, whose only goal in life is money.
4 These wicked men, so proud and haughty, seem to think that God is dead.[a] They wouldn’t think of looking for him! 5 Yet there is success in everything they do, and their enemies fall before them. They do not see your punishment awaiting them. 6 They boast that neither God nor man can ever keep them down—somehow they’ll find a way!
7 Their mouths are full of profanity and lies and fraud. They are always boasting of their evil plans. 8 They lurk in dark alleys of the city and murder passersby. 9 Like lions they crouch silently, waiting to pounce upon the poor. Like hunters they catch their victims in their traps. 10 The unfortunate are overwhelmed by their superior strength and fall beneath their blows. 11 “God isn’t watching,” they say to themselves; “he’ll never know!”
12 O Lord, arise! O God, crush them! Don’t forget the poor or anyone else in need. 13 Why do you let the wicked get away with this contempt for God? For they think that God will never call them to account. 14 Lord, you see what they are doing. You have noted each evil act. You know what trouble and grief they have caused. Now punish them. O Lord, the poor man trusts himself to you; you are known as the helper of the helpless. 15 Break the arms of these wicked men. Go after them until the last of them is destroyed.
16 The Lord is King forever and forever. Those who follow other gods shall be swept from his land.
17 Lord, you know the hopes of humble people. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort their hearts by helping them. 18 You will be with the orphans and all who are oppressed, so that mere earthly man will terrify them no longer.
27 Tell them everything that I will do to them, but don’t expect them to listen. Cry out your warnings, but don’t expect them to respond. 28 Say to them: “This is the nation that refuses to obey the Lord its God and refuses to be taught. She continues to live a lie.”
29 O Jerusalem, shave your head in shame and weep alone upon the mountains; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken this people of his wrath. 30 For the people of Judah have sinned before my very eyes, says the Lord. They have set up their idols right in my own Temple, polluting it. 31 They have built the altar called Topheth in the valley of Ben-hinnom, and there they burn to death their little sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods—a deed so horrible I’ve never even thought of it, let alone commanded it to be done. 32 The time is coming, says the Lord, when that valley’s name will be changed from Topheth or Ben-hinnom Valley, to the Valley of Slaughter; for there will be so many slain to bury that there won’t be room enough for all the graves, and they will dump the bodies in that valley.
33 The bodies of my people shall be food for the birds and animals, and no one shall be left to scare them away. 34 I will end the happy singing and laughter and the joyous voices of the bridegrooms and brides in the streets of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah. For the land shall lie in desolation.
6 On another Sabbath he was in the synagogue teaching, and a man was present whose right hand was deformed. 7 The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees watched closely to see whether he would heal the man that day, since it was the Sabbath. For they were eager to find some charge to bring against him.
8 How well he knew their thoughts! But he said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand here where everyone can see.” So he did.
9 Then Jesus said to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, “I have a question for you. Is it right to do good on the Sabbath day, or to do harm? To save life, or to destroy it?”
10 He looked around at them one by one and then said to the man, “Reach out your hand.” And as he did, it became completely normal again. 11 At this, the enemies of Jesus were wild with rage and began to plot his murder.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.