Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

94 ^1-2 Lord God, to whom vengeance belongs, let your glory shine out. Arise and judge the earth; sentence the proud to the penalties they deserve. ³ Lord, how long shall the wicked be allowed to triumph and exult? ⁴ Hear their insolence! See their arrogance! How these men of evil boast! ⁵ See them oppressing your people, O Lord, afflicting those you love. ^6-7 They murder widows, immigrants, and orphans, for “The Lord isn’t looking,” they say, “and besides, he^[a] doesn’t care.”

⁸ Fools! ⁹ Is God deaf and blind—he who makes ears and eyes? ¹⁰ He punishes the nations—won’t he also punish you? He knows everything—doesn’t he also know what you are doing?

¹¹ The Lord is fully aware of how limited and futile the thoughts of mankind are, ^12-13 so he helps us by punishing us. This makes us follow his paths and gives us respite from our enemies while God traps them and destroys them. ¹⁴ The Lord will not forsake his people, for they are his prize. ¹⁵ Judgment will again be just, and all the upright will rejoice.

¹⁶ Who will protect me from the wicked? Who will be my shield? ¹⁷ I would have died unless the Lord had helped me. ¹⁸ I screamed, “I’m slipping, Lord!” and he was kind and saved me.

¹⁹ Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer. ²⁰ Will you permit a corrupt government to rule under your protection—a government permitting wrong to defeat right? ^21-22 Do you approve of those who condemn the innocent to death? No! The Lord my God is my fortress—the mighty Rock where I can hide. ²³ God has made the sins of evil men to boomerang upon them! He will destroy them by their own plans. Jehovah our God will cut them off.

5 Run up and down through every street in all Jerusalem; search high and low and see if you can find even one person who is fair and honest! Search every square, and if you find just one, I’ll not destroy the city! ² Even under oath, they all lie.

³ O Lord, you are looking for faithfulness. You have tried to get them to be honest, for you have punished them, but they won’t change! You have destroyed them, but they refuse to turn from their sins. They are determined, with faces hard as rock, not to repent.

⁴ Then I said, “But what can we expect from the poor and ignorant? They don’t know the ways of God. How can they obey him?”

⁵ I will go now to their leaders, the men of importance, and speak to them, for they know the ways of the Lord and the judgment that follows sin. But they too had utterly rejected their God.

⁶ So I will send upon them the wild fury of the “lion from the forest”; the “desert wolves” shall pounce upon them, and a “leopard” shall lurk around their cities so that all who go out shall be torn apart. For their sins are very many; their rebellion against me is great.

⁷ How can I pardon you? For even your children have turned away and worship gods that are not gods at all. I fed my people until they were fully satisfied, and their thanks was to commit adultery wholesale and to gang up at the city’s brothels. ⁸ They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s mate. ⁹ Shall I not punish them for this? Shall I not send my vengeance on such a nation as this? ¹⁰ Go down the rows of the vineyards and destroy them! But leave a scattered few to live. Strip the branches from each vine, for they are not the Lord’s.

¹¹ For the people of Israel and Judah are full of treachery against me, says the Lord. ¹² They have lied and said, “He won’t bother us! No evil will come upon us! There will be neither famine nor war! ¹³ God’s prophets,” they say, “are windbags full of words with no divine authority. Their claims of doom will fall upon themselves, not us!”

¹⁴ Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says to his prophets: Because of talk like this, I’ll take your words and prophecies and turn them into raging fire and burn up these people like kindling wood. ¹⁵ See, I will bring a distant nation against you, O Israel, says the Lord. It is a mighty nation, an ancient nation^[a] whose language you don’t understand. ¹⁶ Their weapons are deadly; the men are all mighty. ¹⁷ And they shall eat your harvest and your children’s bread, your flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, yes, and your grapes and figs; and they shall sack your walled cities that you think are safe.

¹⁸ Now, Timothy, my son, here is my command to you: Fight well in the Lord’s battles, just as the Lord told us through his prophets that you would. ¹⁹ Cling tightly to your faith in Christ and always keep your conscience clear, doing what you know is right. For some people have disobeyed their consciences and have deliberately done what they knew was wrong. It isn’t surprising that soon they lost their faith in Christ after defying God like that. ²⁰ Hymenaeus and Alexander are two examples of this. I had to give them over to Satan to punish them until they could learn not to bring shame to the name of Christ.