Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
79 (0) A psalm of Asaf:
(1) God, the pagans have entered your heritage.
They have defiled your holy temple
and turned Yerushalayim into rubble.
2 They have given the corpses of your servants
as food for the birds in the air,
yes, the flesh of those faithful to you
for the wild animals of the earth.
3 All around Yerushalayim
they have shed their blood like water,
and no one is left to bury them.
4 We suffer the taunts of our neighbors,
we are mocked and scorned by those around us.
5 How long, Adonai?
Will you be angry forever?
How long will your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you,
on the kingdoms that don’t call out your name;
7 for they have devoured Ya‘akov
and left his home a waste.
8 Don’t count past iniquities against us,
but let your compassion come quickly to meet us,
for we have been brought very low.
9 Help us, God of our salvation,
for the sake of the glory of your name.
Deliver us, forgive our sins,
for your name’s sake.
8 “At that time,” says Adonai, “[these enemies] will remove the bones of the kings of Y’hudah, the bones of his princes, the bones of the cohanim, the bones of the prophets and the bones of the inhabitants of Yerushalayim from their graves. 2 They will spread them out, exposed to the sun, the moon and the entire army of heaven, whom they loved, served, walked after, sought after and worshipped. The bones will not be collected or reburied but will be left lying on the ground like dung. 3 All the survivors of this evil family who remain wherever I have driven them will prefer death to life,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot. 4 “You are to tell them that Adonai says:
‘If a person falls, doesn’t he get up again?
If someone goes astray, doesn’t he turn back?
5 Why do these people keep backsliding?
Why is their backsliding so persistent?
They cling to deceit and refuse to return!
6 I listened attentively but they spoke nothing right.
No one repents of his wickedness,
saying, “What have I done!”
Each runs off in his own direction,
like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
7 Storks in the sky know their seasons;
doves, swallows and cranes their migration times;
but my people do not know
the rulings of Adonai!
8 “‘How can you say, “We are wise;
Adonai’s Torah is with us,”
when in fact the lying pen of the scribes
has turned it into falsehood?
9 The wise are put to shame,
alarmed, entrapped.
They have rejected the word of Adonai,
so what wisdom do they have?
10 “‘Therefore I will give their wives to others,
and their fields to those who take them over;
for from the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gains;
prophets and cohanim alike
all practice fraud —
11 they dress the wound of the daughter of my people,
but only superficially,
saying, “There is perfect shalom,”
when there is no shalom.
12 They should be ashamed
of their detestable deeds,
but they are not ashamed at all,
they don’t know how to blush.
So when others fall, they too will fall;
when I punish them, they will stumble,’
says Adonai.
13 “‘I will put an end to them,’ says Adonai.
‘There are no grapes on the vine,
and no figs on the fig tree;
the leaf has withered; and what I have given them
will pass from their possession.’”
31 What, then, are we to say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare even his own Son, but gave him up on behalf of us all — is it possible that, having given us his Son, he would not give us everything else too? 33 So who will bring a charge against God’s chosen people? Certainly not God — he is the one who causes them to be considered righteous! 34 Who punishes them? Certainly not the Messiah Yeshua, who died and — more than that — has been raised, is at the right hand of God and is actually pleading on our behalf! 35 Who will separate us from the love of the Messiah? Trouble? Hardship? Persecution? Hunger? Poverty? Danger? War? 36 As the Tanakh puts it,
“For your sake we are being put to death all day long,
we are considered sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]
37 No, in all these things we are superconquerors, through the one who has loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers, neither what exists nor what is coming, 39 neither powers above nor powers below, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.