Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Praise to God for His Salvation and Providence
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. A Song.
65 Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion;
And to You the [a]vow shall be performed.
2 O You who hear prayer,
(A)To You all flesh will come.
3 Iniquities prevail against me;
As for our transgressions,
You will (B)provide atonement for them.
4 (C)Blessed is the man You (D)choose,
And cause to approach You,
That he may dwell in Your courts.
(E)We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Of Your holy temple.
5 By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us,
O God of our salvation,
You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth,
And of the far-off seas;
6 Who established the mountains by His strength,
(F)Being clothed with power;
7 (G)You who still the noise of the seas,
The noise of their waves,
(H)And the tumult of the peoples.
8 They also who dwell in the farthest parts are afraid of Your signs;
You make the outgoings of the morning and evening [b]rejoice.
9 You [c]visit the earth and (I)water it,
You greatly enrich it;
(J)The river of God is full of water;
You provide their grain,
For so You have prepared it.
10 You water its ridges abundantly,
You settle its furrows;
You make it soft with showers,
You bless its growth.
11 You crown the year with Your goodness,
And Your paths drip with abundance.
12 They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,
And the little hills rejoice on every side.
13 The pastures are clothed with flocks;
(K)The valleys also are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, they also sing.
The Locust Plague in Judah
1 The word of the Lord that came to (A)Joel the son of Pethuel.
The Land Laid Waste(B)
2 Hear this, you elders,
And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land!
(C)Has anything like this happened in your days,
Or even in the days of your fathers?
3 (D)Tell your children about it,
Let your children tell their children,
And their children another generation.
4 (E)What the chewing [a]locust left, the (F)swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten;
And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.
5 Awake, you (G)drunkards, and weep;
And wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the new wine,
(H)For it has been cut off from your mouth.
6 For (I)a nation has come up against My land,
Strong, and without number;
(J)His teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And he has the fangs of a [b]fierce lion.
7 He has (K)laid waste My vine,
And [c]ruined My fig tree;
He has stripped it bare and thrown it away;
Its branches are made white.
8 (L)Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth
For (M)the husband of her youth.
9 (N)The grain offering and the drink offering
Have been cut off from the house of the Lord;
The priests (O)mourn, who minister to the Lord.
10 The field is wasted,
(P)The land mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
(Q)The new wine is dried up,
The oil fails.
11 (R)Be ashamed, you farmers,
Wail, you vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley;
Because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 (S)The vine has dried up,
And the fig tree has withered;
The pomegranate tree,
The palm tree also,
And the apple tree—
All the trees of the field are withered;
Surely (T)joy has withered away from the sons of men.
Mourning for the Land
13 (U)Gird yourselves and lament, you priests;
Wail, you who minister before the altar;
Come, lie all night in sackcloth,
You who minister to my God;
For the grain offering and the drink offering
Are withheld from the house of your God.
14 (V)Consecrate a fast,
Call (W)a sacred assembly;
Gather the elders
And (X)all the inhabitants of the land
Into the house of the Lord your God,
And cry out to the Lord.
15 (Y)Alas for the day!
For (Z)the day of the Lord is at hand;
It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.
16 Is not the food (AA)cut off before our eyes,
(AB)Joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17 The seed shrivels under the clods,
Storehouses are in shambles;
Barns are broken down,
For the grain has withered.
18 How (AC)the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are restless,
Because they have no pasture;
Even the flocks of sheep [d]suffer punishment.
Perilous Times and Perilous Men
3 But know this, that (A)in the last days [a]perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, [b]unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 (B)traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 (C)having a form of godliness but (D)denying its power. And (E)from such people turn away! 6 For (F)of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able (G)to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 (H)Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: (I)men of corrupt minds, (J)disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, (K)as theirs also was.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.