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.

8 At that time, says the Lord, [the Babylonian army will break open the sepulchers, and] they shall bring out the ^[a]bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves.

² And they will [carelessly] scatter [the corpses] before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which [the dead] have loved and which they have served and after which they have walked and which they have sought, inquired of, and required and which they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered, or be buried; they shall be like ^[b]dung upon the face of the earth.

³ And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of those who remain of this evil family (nation), who remain in all the places to which I have driven them, says the Lord of hosts.

⁴ Moreover, you [Jeremiah] shall say to them, Thus says the Lord: Shall men fall and not rise up again? Shall one turn away [from God] and not repent and return [to Him]?

⁵ Why then is this people of Jerusalem turned away with a perpetual turning away [from Me]? They hold fast to ^[c]deceit (idolatry); they refuse to repent and return [to God].

⁶ I have listened and heard, but they have not spoken aright; no man repents of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Everyone turns to his [individual] course, as the horse rushes like a torrent into battle.

⁷ [Even the migratory birds are punctual to their seasons.] Yes, the stork [excelling in the great height of her flight] in the heavens knows her appointed times [of migration], and the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their return. But My people do not know the law of the Lord [which the lower animals instinctively recognize in so far as it applies to them].

⁸ How can you say, We are wise, and we have the written law of the Lord [and are learned in its language and teachings]? Behold, the truth is, the lying pen of the scribes has made of the law a falsehood (a mere code of ceremonial observances).^(A)

⁹ The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken [captive]. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom and broad, full intelligence is in them?

¹⁰ Therefore will I give their wives to others and their fields to those who gain possession of them; for everyone, from the least even to the greatest, is given to covetousness (is greedy for unjust gain); from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.

¹¹ For they have healed the wound of the daughter of My people only lightly and slightingly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.

¹² They are brought to shame because they have committed abominations (extremely disgusting and shamefully vile things). And yet they were not at all ashamed, nor could they blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time of their punishment they shall be overthrown, says the Lord.^(B)

¹³ I will gather and sweep them away, utterly consuming them, says the Lord. [I will find] no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and even the leaf is withered; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them [for I have appointed to them those who shall pass over them].^(C)

³¹ What then shall we say to [all] this? If God is for us, who [can be] against us? [Who can be our foe, if God is on our side?]^(A)

³² He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all [other] things?

³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect [when it is] God Who justifies [that is, Who puts us in right relation to Himself? Who shall come forward and accuse or impeach those whom God has chosen? Will God, Who acquits us?]

³⁴ Who is there to condemn [us]? Will Christ Jesus (the Messiah), Who died, or rather Who was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God actually pleading as He intercedes for us?

³⁵ Who shall ever separate us from Christ’s love? Shall suffering and affliction and tribulation? Or calamity and distress? Or persecution or hunger or destitution or peril or sword?

³⁶ Even as it is written, For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are regarded and counted as sheep for the slaughter.^(B)

³⁷ Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors ^[a]and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us.

³⁸ For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things ^[b]impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers,

³⁹ Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.