Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 2

¹ Why do the nations assemble with commotion [uproar and confusion of voices], and why do the people imagine (meditate upon and devise) an empty scheme?

² The kings of the earth take their places; the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed One (the Messiah, the Christ). They say,^(A)

³ Let us break Their bands [of restraint] asunder and cast Their cords [of control] from us.

⁴ He Who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision [and in supreme contempt He mocks them].

⁵ He speaks to them in His deep anger and troubles (terrifies and confounds) them in His displeasure and fury, saying,

⁶ Yet have I anointed (installed and placed) My King [firmly] on My holy hill of Zion.

⁷ I will declare the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, You are My Son; this day [I declare] I have begotten You.^(B)

⁸ Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as Your possession.

⁹ You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like potters’ ware.^(C)

¹⁰ Now therefore, O you kings, act wisely; be instructed and warned, O you rulers of the earth.

¹¹ Serve the Lord with reverent awe and worshipful fear; rejoice and be in high spirits with trembling [lest you displease Him].

¹² Kiss the Son [pay homage to Him in purity], lest He be angry and you perish in the way, for soon shall His wrath be kindled. O blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) are all those who seek refuge and put their trust in Him!

¹² But they will say, That is in vain! For we will walk after our own devices, and we will each do as the stubbornness of his own evil heart dictates.

¹³ Therefore thus says the Lord: Ask now among the nations: Who has heard such things? Virgin Israel has done a very vile and horrible thing.

¹⁴ Will the snow of Mount Lebanon fail and vanish from its rocks [which tower above the land of Israel]? Will the cold, rushing waters of strange lands [that dash down from afar] be dried up?

¹⁵ Yet My people have forgotten Me; they burn incense to false gods, they have been caused to stumble in their ways and in the ancient roads, to walk in bypaths, in a way not graded and built up [not on a highway],

¹⁶ Making their land a desolation and a horror, a thing to be hissed at perpetually; everyone who passes by shall be astounded and horrified and shake his head.

¹⁷ I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity [says the Lord].

¹⁸ Then [my enemies] said, Come and let us devise schemes against Jeremiah; for the law [of Moses] shall not perish from the priest [as this false prophet Jeremiah predicts], nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us smite him with the tongue [making a charge against him to the king], and let us not pay any attention to his words.

¹⁹ Give heed to me, Lord; listen to [what] my adversaries [are plotting to do to me—and intercede].

²⁰ Shall evil be recompensed for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. [Earnestly] remember that I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn away Your anger from them.

²¹ Therefore deliver up their children to the famine; give them over to the power of the sword. And let their wives become childless and widows; let their men meet death by pestilence, their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

²² Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring a troop upon them, for they have dug a pit to take me and have hidden snares for my feet.

²³ Yet, Lord, You know all their plotting against me to slay me. Forgive not their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from Your sight. But let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.

¹⁴ Although I hope to come to you before long, I am writing these instructions to you so that,

¹⁵ If I am detained, you may know how people ought to conduct themselves in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and stay (the prop and support) of the Truth.

¹⁶ And great and important and weighty, we confess, is the hidden truth (the mystic secret) of godliness. He [^[a]God] was made visible in human flesh, justified and vindicated in the [Holy] Spirit, was seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, [and] taken up in glory.

4 But the [Holy] Spirit distinctly and expressly declares that in latter times some will turn away from the faith, giving attention to deluding and seducing spirits and doctrines that demons teach,

² Through the hypocrisy and pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared (cauterized),

³ Who forbid people to marry and [teach them] to abstain from [certain kinds of] foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and have [an increasingly clear] knowledge of the truth.

⁴ For everything God has created is good, and nothing is to be thrown away or refused if it is received with thanksgiving.

⁵ For it is hallowed and consecrated by the Word of God and by prayer.