Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

79 O God, your land has been conquered by the heathen nations. Your Temple is defiled, and Jerusalem is a heap of ruins. ² The bodies of your people lie exposed—food for birds and animals. ³ The enemy has butchered the entire population of Jerusalem; blood has flowed like water. No one is left even to bury them. ⁴ The nations all around us scoff. They heap contempt on us.

⁵ O Jehovah, how long will you be angry with us? Forever? Will your jealousy burn till every hope is gone? ⁶ Pour out your wrath upon the godless nations—not on us—on kingdoms that refuse to pray, that will not call upon your name! ⁷ For they have destroyed your people Israel, invading every home. ⁸ Oh, do not hold us guilty for our former sins! Let your tenderhearted mercies meet our needs, for we are brought low to the dust. ⁹ Help us, God of our salvation! Help us for the honor of your name. Oh, save us and forgive our sins.

8 Then, says the Lord, the enemy shall break open the graves of the kings of Judah and of the princes, and the graves of the priests, prophets, and people, ² and dig out their bones and spread them out on the ground before the sun and moon and stars—the gods of my people!—whom they have loved and worshiped. Their bones shall not be gathered up again nor buried but shall be scattered like dung upon the ground. ³ And those of this evil nation who are still left alive shall long to die rather than live where I will scatter them, says the Lord Almighty.

^4-5 Once again give them this message from the Lord: When a person falls, he jumps up again; when he is on the wrong road and discovers his mistake, he goes back to the fork where he made the wrong turn. But these people keep on along their evil path, even though I warn them. ⁶ I listen to their conversation and what do I hear? Is anyone sorry for sin? Does anyone say, “What a terrible thing I have done”? No, all are rushing pell-mell down the path of sin as swiftly as a horse rushing to the battle! ⁷ The stork knows the time of her migration, as does the turtledove, the crane, and the swallow. They all return at God’s appointed time each year; but not my people! They don’t accept the laws of God.

⁸ How can you say, “We understand his laws,” when your teachers have twisted them up to mean a thing I never said? ⁹ These wise teachers of yours will be shamed by exile for this sin, for they have rejected the word of the Lord. Are they then so wise? ¹⁰ I will give their wives and their farms to others; for all of them, great and small, prophet and priest, have one purpose in mind—to get what isn’t theirs. ¹¹ They give useless medicine for my people’s grievous wounds, for they assure them all is well when that isn’t so at all! ¹² Are they ashamed because they worship idols? No, not in the least; they don’t even know how to blush! That is why I will see to it that they lie among the fallen. I will visit them with death. ¹³ Their figs and grapes will disappear, their fruit trees will die, and all the good things I prepared for them will soon be gone.

³¹ What can we ever say to such wonderful things as these? If God is on our side, who can ever be against us? ³² Since he did not spare even his own Son for us but gave him up for us all, won’t he also surely give us everything else?

³³ Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has forgiven us and given us right standing with himself.

³⁴ Who then will condemn us? Will Christ? No! For he is the one who died for us and came back to life again for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us there in heaven.

³⁵ Who then can ever keep Christ’s love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn’t love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us?

³⁶ No, for the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day—we are like sheep awaiting slaughter; ³⁷ but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, ³⁹ or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.