◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous) / Psalm 76 (God breaks the weapons of war); Isaiah 66:14-24 (The reign of God); Matthew 23:37—24:14 (The last things) (New American Bible (Revised Edition))

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 76

Psalm 76^[a]

God Defends Zion

¹For the leader; a psalm with stringed instruments. A song of Asaph.

I

²Renowned in Judah is God,^(A)
    whose name is great in Israel.
³On Salem^[b] is God’s tent, his shelter on Zion.
⁴    There the flashing arrows were shattered,
    shield, sword, and weapons of war.^(B)
Selah

II

⁵Terrible and awesome are you,
    stronger than the ancient mountains.^[c]
⁶Despoiled are the stouthearted;
    they sank into sleep;
    the hands of all the men of valor have failed.^(C)
⁷At your roar, O God of Jacob,
    chariot and steed lay still.
⁸You, terrible are you;
    who can stand before you and your great anger?^(D)
⁹From the heavens you pronounced sentence;
    the earth was terrified and reduced to silence,
¹⁰When you arose, O God, for judgment
    to save the afflicted of the land.
Selah
¹¹Surely the wrath of man will give you thanks;
    the remnant of your furor will keep your feast.

III

¹²Make and keep vows to the Lord your God.^(E)
May all around him bring gifts to the one to be feared,
¹³Who checks the spirit of princes,
who is fearful to the kings of earth.

Isaiah 66:14-24

¹⁴You will see and your heart shall exult,
    and your bodies shall flourish like the grass;
The Lord’s power shall be revealed to his servants,
    but to his enemies, his wrath.
¹⁵For see, the Lord will come in fire,
    his chariots like the stormwind;
To wreak his anger in burning rage
    and his rebuke in fiery flames.
¹⁶For with fire the Lord shall enter into judgment,
    and, with his sword, against all flesh;
    Those slain by the Lord shall be many.^(A)

¹⁷^[a]Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one who stands within, eating pig’s flesh, abominable things, and mice, shall all together come to an end, with their deeds and purposes—oracle of the Lord.

God Gathers the Nations. ¹⁸^[b]I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; they shall come and see my glory.^(B) ¹⁹I will place a sign among them; from them I will send survivors to the nations: to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands which have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory; and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations. ²⁰They shall bring all your kin from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. ²¹Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the Lord.

²²Just as the new heavens and the new earth
    which I am making
Shall endure before me—oracle of the Lord—
    so shall your descendants and your name endure.^(C)
²³From new moon to new moon,
    and from sabbath to sabbath,
All flesh shall come to worship
    before me, says the Lord.^(D)
²⁴^[c]They shall go out and see the corpses^(E)
    of the people who rebelled against me;
For their worm shall not die,
    their fire shall not be extinguished;
    and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

Matthew 23:37-24:14

³⁷^(A)“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!^(B) ³⁸^(C)Behold, your house will be abandoned, desolate. ³⁹^(D)I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Chapter 24

The Destruction of the Temple Foretold. ¹^[a]^(E)Jesus left the temple area and was going away, when his disciples approached him to point out the temple buildings. ²^[b]He said to them in reply, “You see all these things, do you not? Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.”

The Beginning of Calamities. ³As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives,^[c] the disciples approached him privately and said, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what sign will there be of your coming, and of the end of the age?” ⁴^[d]Jesus said to them in reply, “See that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many. ⁶^(F)You will hear of wars^[e] and reports of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for these things must happen, but it will not yet be the end. ⁷^(G)Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be famines and earthquakes from place to place. ⁸^[f]All these are the beginning of the labor pains. ⁹^[g]^(H)Then they will hand you over to persecution, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. ¹⁰And then many will be led into sin; they will betray and hate one another. ¹¹Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; ¹²and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³^(I)But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. ¹⁴^(J)And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a witness to all nations,^[h] and then the end will come.

The Great Tribulation.^[i]

Footnotes

24:1–25:46 The discourse of the fifth book, the last of the five around which the gospel is structured. It is called the “eschatological” discourse since it deals with the coming of the new age (the eschaton) in its fullness, with events that will precede it, and with how the disciples are to conduct themselves while awaiting an event that is as certain as its exact time is unknown to all but the Father (Mt 24:36). The discourse may be divided into two parts, Mt 24:1–44 and Mt 24:45–25:46. In the first, Matthew follows his Marcan source (Mk 13:1–37) closely. The second is drawn from Q and from the evangelist’s own traditional material. Both parts show Matthew’s editing of his sources by deletions, additions, and modifications. The vigilant waiting that is emphasized in the second part does not mean a cessation of ordinary activity and concentration only on what is to come, but a faithful accomplishment of duties at hand, with awareness that the end, for which the disciples must always be ready, will entail the great judgment by which the everlasting destiny of all will be determined.
24:2 As in Mark, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple. By omitting the Marcan story of the widow’s contribution (Mk 12:41–44) that immediately precedes the prediction in that gospel, Matthew has established a close connection between it and Mt 23:38, “…your house will be abandoned desolate.”
24:3 The Mount of Olives: see note on Mt 21:1. The disciples: cf. Mk 13:3–4 where only Peter, James, John, and Andrew put the question that is answered by the discourse. In both gospels, however, the question is put privately: the ensuing discourse is only for those who are disciples of Jesus. When will this happen…end of the age?: Matthew distinguishes carefully between the destruction of the temple (this) and the coming of Jesus that will bring the end of the age. In Mark the two events are more closely connected, a fact that may be explained by Mark’s believing that the one would immediately succeed the other. Coming: this translates the Greek word parousia, which is used in the gospels only here and in Mt 24:27, 37, 39. It designated the official visit of a ruler to a city or the manifestation of a saving deity, and it was used by Christians to refer to the final coming of Jesus in glory, a term first found in the New Testament with that meaning in 1 Thes 2:19. The end of the age: see note on Mt 13:39.
24:4–14 This section of the discourse deals with calamities in the world (Mt 24:6–7) and in the church (Mt 24:9–12). The former must happen before the end comes (Mt 24:6), but they are only the beginning of the labor pains (Mt 24:8). (It may be noted that the Greek word translated the end in Mt 24:6 and in Mt 24:13–14 is not the same as the phrase “the end of the age” in Mt 24:3, although the meaning is the same.) The latter are sufferings of the church, both from within and without, that will last until the gospel is preached…to all nations. Then the end will come and those who have endured the sufferings with fidelity will be saved (Mt 24:13–14).
24:6–7 The disturbances mentioned here are a commonplace of apocalyptic language, as is the assurance that they must happen (see Dn 2:28 LXX), for that is the plan of God. Kingdom against kingdom: see Is 19:2.
24:8 The labor pains: the tribulations leading up to the end of the age are compared to the pains of a woman about to give birth. There is much attestation for rabbinic use of the phrase “the woes (or birth pains) of the Messiah” after the New Testament period, but in at least one instance it is attributed to a rabbi who lived in the late first century A.D. In this Jewish usage it meant the distress of the time preceding the coming of the Messiah; here, the labor pains precede the coming of the Son of Man in glory.
24:9–12 Matthew has used Mk 13:9–12 in his missionary discourse (Mt 10:17–21) and omits it here. Besides the sufferings, including death, and the hatred of all nations that the disciples will have to endure, there will be worse affliction within the church itself. This is described in Mt 24:10–12, which are peculiar to Matthew. Will be led into sin: literally, “will be scandalized,” probably meaning that they will become apostates; see Mt 13:21 where “fall away” translates the same Greek word as here. Betray: in the Greek this is the same word as the hand over of Mt 24:9. The handing over to persecution and hatred from outside will have their counterpart within the church. False prophets: these are Christians; see note on Mt 7:15–20. Evildoing: see Mt 7:23. Because of the apocalyptic nature of much of this discourse, the literal meaning of this description of the church should not be pressed too hard. However, there is reason to think that Matthew’s addition of these verses reflects in some measure the condition of his community.
24:14 Except for the last part (and then the end will come), this verse substantially repeats Mk 13:10. The Matthean addition raises a problem since what follows in Mt 24:15–23 refers to the horrors of the First Jewish Revolt including the destruction of the temple, and Matthew, writing after that time, knew that the parousia of Jesus was still in the future. A solution may be that the evangelist saw the events of those verses as foreshadowing the cosmic disturbances that he associates with the parousia (Mt 24:29) so that the period in which the former took place could be understood as belonging to the end.
24:15–28 Cf. Mk 13:14–23; Lk 17:23–24, 37. A further stage in the tribulations that will precede the coming of the Son of Man, and an answer to the question of Mt 24:3a, “when will this (the destruction of the temple) happen?”

New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 76^[a]

God Defends Zion

I

II

III

Footnotes

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Footnotes

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Chapter 24

Footnotes

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 76[a]

God Defends Zion

I

II

III

Footnotes

Cross references

Footnotes

Cross references

Chapter 24

Footnotes

Cross references

Psalm 76^[a]