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.
18 But I will not completely blot you out. So says the Lord.
19 And when your people ask, “Why is it that the Lord is doing this to us?” then you shall say, “You rejected him and gave yourselves to other gods while in your land; now you must be slaves to foreigners in their lands.”
20 Make this announcement to Judah and to Israel:
21 Listen, O foolish, senseless people—you with the eyes that do not see and the ears that do not listen— 22 have you no respect at all for me? the Lord God asks. How can it be that you don’t even tremble in my presence? I set the shorelines of the world by perpetual decrees, so that the oceans, though they toss and roar, can never pass those bounds. Isn’t such a God to be feared and worshiped?
23-24 But my people have rebellious hearts; they have turned against me and gone off into idolatry. Though I am the one who gives them rain each year in spring and fall and sends the harvesttimes, yet they have no respect or fear for me. 25 And so I have taken away these wondrous blessings from them. This sin has robbed them of all of these good things.
26 Among my people are wicked men who lurk for victims like a hunter hiding in a blind. They set their traps for men. 27 Like a coop full of chickens their homes are full of evil plots. And the result? Now they are great and rich, 28 they are well fed and well groomed, and there is no limit to their wicked deeds. They refuse justice to orphans and the rights of the poor. 29 Should I sit back and act as though nothing is going on? the Lord God asks. Shouldn’t I punish a nation such as this?
30 A horrible thing has happened in this land— 31 the priests are ruled by false prophets, and my people like it so! But your doom is certain.
8 But don’t forget this, dear friends, that a day or a thousand years from now is like tomorrow to the Lord. 9 He isn’t really being slow about his promised return, even though it sometimes seems that way. But he is waiting, for the good reason that he is not willing that any should perish, and he is giving more time for sinners to repent. 10 The day of the Lord is surely coming, as unexpectedly as a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the heavenly bodies will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be burned up.
11 And so since everything around us is going to melt away, what holy, godly lives we should be living! 12 You should look forward to that day and hurry it along—the day when God will set the heavens on fire, and the heavenly bodies will melt and disappear in flames. 13 But we are looking forward to God’s promise of new heavens and a new earth afterwards, where there will be only goodness.[a]
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.