Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

66 Sing to the Lord, all the earth! ² Sing of his glorious name! Tell the world how wonderful he is.

³ How awe-inspiring are your deeds, O God! How great your power! No wonder your enemies surrender! ⁴ All the earth shall worship you and sing of your glories. ⁵ Come, see the glorious things God has done. What marvelous miracles happen to his people! ⁶ He made a dry road through the sea for them. They went across on foot. What excitement and joy there was that day!

⁷ Because of his great power he rules forever. He watches every movement of the nations. O rebel lands, he will deflate your pride.

⁸ Let everyone bless God and sing his praises; ⁹ for he holds our lives in his hands, and he holds our feet to the path. ¹⁰ You have purified us with fire,^[a] O Lord, like silver in a crucible. ¹¹ You captured us in your net and laid great burdens on our backs. ¹² You sent troops to ride across our broken bodies.^[b] We went through fire and flood. But in the end, you brought us into wealth and great abundance.

25 This message for all the people of Judah came from the Lord to Jeremiah during the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah (son of Josiah). This was the year Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, began his reign.

^2-3 For the past twenty-three years, Jeremiah said, from the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (son of Amon) king of Judah, until now, God has been sending me his messages. I have faithfully passed them on to you, but you haven’t listened. ⁴ Again and again down through the years, God has sent you his prophets, but you have refused to hear. ⁵ Each time the message was this: “Turn from the evil road you are traveling and from the evil things you are doing. Only then can you continue to live here in this land which the Lord gave to you and to your ancestors forever. ⁶ Don’t anger me by worshiping idols; but if you are true to me, then I’ll not harm you.” ⁷ But you won’t listen; you have gone ahead and made me furious with your idols. So you have brought upon yourselves all the evil that has come your way.

^8-9 And now the Lord God says: Because you have not listened to me, I will gather together all the armies of the north under Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (I have appointed him as my deputy), and I will bring them all against this land and its people and against the other nations near you, and I will utterly destroy you and make you a byword of contempt forever. ¹⁰ I will take away your joy, your gladness, and your wedding feasts; your businesses shall fail, and all your homes shall lie in silent darkness. ¹¹ This entire land shall become a desolate wasteland; all the world will be shocked at the disaster that befalls you. Israel and her neighboring lands shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.

¹² Then, after these years^[a] of slavery are ended, I will punish the king of Babylon and his people for their sins; I will make the land of Chaldea an everlasting waste. ¹³ I will bring upon them all the terrors I have promised in this book—all the penalties announced by Jeremiah against the nations. ¹⁴ For many nations and great kings shall enslave the Chaldeans, just as they enslaved my people; I will punish them in proportion to their treatment of my people.

¹³ Hold tightly to the pattern of truth I taught you, especially concerning the faith and love Christ Jesus offers you.^{[a] 14} Guard well the splendid, God-given ability you received as a gift from the Holy Spirit who lives within you.

¹⁵ As you know, all the Christians who came here from Asia have deserted me; even Phygellus and Hermogenes are gone. ¹⁶ May the Lord bless Onesiphorus and all his family because he visited me and encouraged me often. His visits revived me like a breath of fresh air, and he was never ashamed of my being in jail. ¹⁷ In fact, when he came to Rome, he searched everywhere trying to find me, and finally did. ¹⁸ May the Lord give him a special blessing at the day of Christ’s return. And you know better than I can tell you how much he helped me at Ephesus.