Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 79
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 O God, the nations have come into [the land of Your people] Your inheritance; Your sacred temple have they defiled; they have made Jerusalem heaps of ruins.
2 The dead bodies of Your servants they have given as food to the birds of the heavens, the flesh of Your saints to the beasts of the earth.
3 Their blood they have poured out like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.
4 [Because of such humiliation] we have become a taunt and reproach to our neighbors, a mocking and derision to those who are round about us.
5 How long, O Lord? Will You be angry forever? Shall Your jealousy [which cannot endure a divided allegiance] burn like fire?
6 Pour out Your wrath on the Gentile nations who do not acknowledge You, and upon the kingdoms that do not call on Your name.(A)
7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling and his pasture.
8 O do not [earnestly] remember against us the iniquities and guilt of our forefathers! Let Your compassion and tender mercy speedily come to meet us, for we are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name! Deliver us, forgive us, and purge away our sins for Your name’s sake.
14 Thus says the Lord against all My evil neighbor [nations] who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will pluck them up from their land and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them.
15 And after I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them and will bring them back again, every man to his heritage and every man to his land.
16 And if these [neighbor nations] will diligently learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, saying, As the Lord lives—even as they taught My people to swear by Baal—then will they be built up in the midst of My people.
17 But if any nation will not hear and obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, says the Lord.
13 Thus the Lord said to me: Go and buy yourself a linen girdle and put it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
2 So I bought a girdle or waistcloth, according to the word of the Lord, and put it on my loins.
3 And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying,
4 Take the girdle which you have bought, which is on your loins, and arise, go to the [river] Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.
5 So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me.
6 And after many days the Lord said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the girdle which I commanded you to hide there.
7 Then I went to the Euphrates and dug and took the girdle or waistcloth from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the girdle was decayed and spoiled; it was good for nothing.
8 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
9 Thus says the Lord: After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.
10 These evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to worship them, shall even be like this girdle or waistcloth, which is profitable for nothing.
11 For as the girdle clings to the loins of a man, so I caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me, says the Lord, that they might be for Me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory; but they would not listen or obey.
3 Then what advantage remains to the Jew? [How is he favored?] Or what is the value or benefit of circumcision?
2 Much in every way. To begin with, to the Jews were entrusted the oracles (the brief communications, the intentions, the utterances) of God.(A)
3 What if some did not believe and were without faith? Does their lack of faith and their faithlessness nullify and make ineffective and void the faithfulness of God and His fidelity [to His Word]?
4 By no means! Let God be found true though every human being is false and a liar, as it is written, That You may be justified and shown to be upright in what You say, and prevail when You are judged [by sinful men].(B)
5 But if our unrighteousness thus establishes and exhibits the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust and wrong to inflict His wrath upon us [Jews]? I speak in a [purely] human way.
6 By no means! Otherwise, how could God judge the world?
7 But [you say] if through my falsehood God’s integrity is magnified and advertised and abounds to His glory, why am I still being judged as a sinner?
8 And why should we not do evil that good may come?—as some slanderously charge us with teaching. Such [false teaching] is justly condemned by them.
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