Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁴⁰ Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against His people, insomuch that He abhorred and rejected His own heritage.^(A)

⁴¹ And He gave them into the hands of the [heathen] nations, and they that hated them ruled over them.

⁴² Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under the hand of their foes.

⁴³ Many times did [God] deliver them, but they were rebellious in their counsel and sank low through their iniquity.

⁴⁴ Nevertheless He regarded their distress when He heard their cry;

⁴⁵ And He [earnestly] remembered for their sake His covenant and relented their sentence of evil [comforting and easing Himself] according to the abundance of His mercy and loving-kindness [when they cried out to Him].

⁴⁶ He also caused [Israel] to find sympathy among those who had carried them away captive.

⁴⁷ Deliver us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name and glory in praising You.

⁴⁸ Blessed (affectionately and gratefully praised) be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, Amen! Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)^(B)

¹² Who is the wise man who may understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through it?

¹³ And the Lord says, Because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them, and have not listened to and obeyed My voice or walked in accordance with it

¹⁴ But have walked stubbornly after their own hearts and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,

¹⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them bitter and poisonous water to drink.

¹⁶ I will scatter them also among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword among them and after them until I have consumed them.

¹⁷ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skillful women to come.

¹⁸ Let them make haste and raise a wailing over us and for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water.

¹⁹ For a sound of wailing is heard [coming] out of Zion: How we are plundered and ruined! We are greatly confounded and utterly put to shame, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings [our dwellings that have cast us out].

²⁰ Yet hear the word of the Lord, O you women, and let your ears receive the word of His mouth; teach your daughters a lament, and each one [teach] her neighbor a dirge.

²¹ For death has come up into our windows; it has entered into our palaces, cutting off the children from outdoors and the young men from the streets.

²² Speak, Thus says the Lord: The dead bodies of men shall fall like dung on the open field and like sheaves [of grain] behind the reaper, and none shall gather them.^(A)

²³ Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise and skillful person glory and boast in his wisdom and skill; let not the mighty and powerful person glory and boast in his strength and power; let not the person who is rich [in physical gratification and earthly wealth] glory and boast in his [temporal satisfactions and earthly] riches;

²⁴ But let him who glories glory in this: that he understands and knows Me [personally and practically, directly discerning and recognizing My character], that I am the Lord, Who practices loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.^(B)

²⁵ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will punish all who though circumcised [outwardly, in the flesh] are still uncircumcised [in corresponding inward purity]—^(C)

²⁶ Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab [all of whom are related except Egypt], and all who live in the desert and who clip off the corners of their hair and beards; for all these nations are uncircumcised [in heart], and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

4 And while they [Peter and John] were talking to the people, the high priests and the military commander of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them,

² Being vexed and indignant through and through because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in [the case of] Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

³ So they laid hands on them (arrested them) and put them in prison until the following day, for it was already evening.

⁴ But many of those who heard the message believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on Jesus as the Christ). And their number grew and came to about 5,000.

⁵ Then on the following day, their magistrates and elders and scribes were assembled in Jerusalem,

⁶ Including Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all others who belonged to the high priestly relationship.

⁷ And they set the men in their midst and repeatedly demanded, By what sort of power or by what kind of authority did [such people as] you do this [healing]?

⁸ Then Peter, [because he was] filled with [and controlled by] the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and members of the council (the Sanhedrin),

⁹ If we are being put on trial [here] today and examined concerning a good deed done to benefit a feeble (helpless) cripple, by what means this man has been restored to health,

¹⁰ Let it be known and understood by all of you, and by the whole house of Israel, that in the name and through the power and authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Whom you crucified, [but] Whom God raised from the dead, in Him and by means of Him this man is standing here before you well and sound in body.

¹¹ This [Jesus] is the Stone which was despised and rejected by you, the builders, but which has become the Head of the corner [the Cornerstone].^(A)

¹² And there is salvation in and through no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by and in which we must be saved.