Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
94 God of vengeance, Adonai!
God of vengeance, appear!
2 Assert yourself as judge of the earth!
Pay back the proud as they deserve!
3 How long are the wicked, Adonai,
how long are the wicked to triumph?
4 They pour out insolent words,
they go on bragging, all these evildoers.
5 They crush your people, Adonai,
they oppress your heritage.
6 They kill widows and strangers
and murder the fatherless.
7 They say, “Yah isn’t looking;
the God of Ya‘akov won’t notice.”
8 Take notice, yourselves, you boors among the people!
You fools, when will you understand?
9 Will the one who planted the ear not hear?
Will the one who formed the eye not see?
10 Will the one who disciplines nations not correct them?
Will the teacher of humanity not know?
11 Adonai understands that people’s thoughts
are merely a puff of wind.
12 How happy the man whom you correct, Yah,
whom you teach from your Torah,
13 giving him respite from days of trouble,
till a pit is dug for the wicked!
14 For Adonai will not desert his people,
he will not abandon his heritage.
15 Justice will once again become righteous,
and all the upright in heart will follow it.
16 Who will champion my cause against the wicked?
Who will stand up for me against evildoers?
17 If Adonai hadn’t helped me,
I would soon have dwelt in the land of silence.
18 When I said, “My foot is slipping!”
your grace, Adonai, supported me.
19 When my cares within me are many,
your comforts cheer me up.
20 Can unjust judges be allied with you,
those producing wrong in the name of law?
21 They band together against the righteous
and condemn the innocent to death.
22 But Adonai has become my stronghold,
my God is my rock of refuge.
23 But he repays them as their guilt deserves;
he will cut them off with their own evil;
Adonai our God will cut them off.
5 “Roam the streets of Yerushalayim
look around, observe and ask in its open spaces:
if you can find anyone (if there is anyone!)
who acts with justice and seeks the truth,
I will pardon her.
2 And though they say, ‘As Adonai lives,’
the fact is that they are swearing falsely.”
3 Adonai, your eyes look for truth.
You struck them, but they weren’t affected;
you [nearly] destroyed them,
but they refused correction.
They made their faces harder than rock,
refusing to repent.
4 My reaction was, “These must be the poor,
the foolish, not knowing the way of Adonai
or the rulings of their God.
5 I will go to the prominent men,
and I will speak to them;
for they know the way of Adonai
and the rulings of their God.”
But these had completely broken the yoke
and torn the harness off.
6 This is why a forest lion kills them,
why a desert wolf can plunder them,
why a leopard guards their cities —
all who leave are torn to pieces —
because their crimes are many,
their backslidings keep increasing.
7 “Why should I forgive you?
Your people have abandoned me
and sworn by non-gods.
When I fed them to the full,
they committed adultery,
thronging to the brothels.
8 They have become like well-fed horses,
lusty stallions, each one neighing
after his neighbor’s wife.
9 Should I not punish for this?” asks Adonai.
“Should I not be avenged on a nation like this?”
10 Go through her rows [of vines], and destroy them
(but don’t destroy them completely):
strip away her branches,
they do not belong to Adonai.
11 “For the house of Isra’el
and the house of Y’hudah
have thoroughly betrayed me,” says Adonai.
12 They have denied Adonai,
they have said, “He won’t do anything,
calamity will not strike us,
we will see neither sword nor famine.
13 The prophets are merely wind,
they do not have the word;
the things that they are predicting
will happen only to them.”
14 Therefore Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot says:
“Because you people speak this way,
I will make my words fire in your mouth, [Yirmeyahu,]
and this people wood;
so that it will devour them.
15 I will bring on you, house of Isra’el,
a distant nation,” says Adonai,
“an enduring nation, an ancient nation,
a nation whose language you do not know —
you will not understand what they are saying.
16 Their quiver is like an open grave,
they are all mighty warriors.
17 They will eat up your harvest and your bread,
they will eat up your sons and your daughters,
they will eat up your flocks and your herds,
they will eat up your vines and your fig trees;
with the sword they will beat down
your fortified cities, in which you trust.
18 This charge, son Timothy, I put to you, in keeping with the prophecies already made about you, so that by these prophecies you may fight the good fight, 19 armed with trust and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, some have made shipwreck of their trust; 20 among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander. I have turned them over to the Adversary, so that they will learn not to insult God.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.