Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 117

¹ O praise the Lord, all you nations! Praise Him, all you people!^(A)

² For His mercy and loving-kindness are great toward us, and the truth and faithfulness of the Lord endure forever. Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)

30 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:

² Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write all the words that I have spoken to you in a book.

³ For, note well, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will release from captivity My people Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.

⁴ And these are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah:

⁵ Thus says the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling and panic—of terror, and not peace.

⁶ Ask now and see whether a man can give birth to a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor? Why are all faces turned pale?

⁷ Alas! for that day will be great, so that none will be like it; it will be the time of Jacob’s [unequaled] trouble, but he will be saved out of it.^(A)

⁸ For it will come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will break [the oppressor’s] yoke from your neck, and I will burst your bonds; and strangers will no more make slaves of [the people of Israel].

⁹ But they will serve the Lord their God and David’s [descendant] their King, Whom I will raise up for them.^(B)

¹⁰ Therefore fear not, O My servant Jacob, says the Lord, nor be dismayed or cast down, O Israel; for behold, I will save you out of a distant land [of exile] and your posterity from the land of their captivity. Jacob will return and will be quiet and at ease, and none will make him afraid or cause him to be terrorized and to tremble.

¹¹ For I am with you, says the Lord, to save you; for I will make a full and complete end of all the nations to which I have scattered you, but I will not make a full and complete end of you. But I will correct you in measure and with judgment and will in no sense hold you guiltless or leave you unpunished.

¹² For thus says the Lord: Your hurt is incurable and your wound is grievous.

¹³ There is none to plead your cause; for [the pressing together of] your wound you have no healing [device], no binding plaster.

¹⁴ All your lovers (allies) have forgotten you; they neither seek, inquire of, or require you. For I have hurt you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel and merciless foe, because of the greatness of your perversity and guilt, because your sins are glaring and innumerable.

¹⁵ Why do you cry out because of your hurt [the natural result of your sins]? Your pain is deadly (incurable). Because of the greatness of your perversity and guilt, because your sins are glaring and innumerable, I have done these things to you.

¹⁶ Therefore all who devour you will be devoured; and all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity. And they who despoil you will become a spoil, and all who prey upon you will I give for a prey.

¹⁷ For I will restore health to you, and I will heal your wounds, says the Lord, because they have called you an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no one seeks after and for whom no one cares!

⁵ And He Who is seated on the throne said, See! I make all things new. Also He said, Record this, for these sayings are faithful (accurate, incorruptible, and trustworthy) and true (genuine).^(A)

⁶ And He [further] said to me, It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I [Myself] will give water without price from the fountain (springs) of the water of Life.^(B)

⁷ He who is victorious shall inherit all these things, and I will be God to him and he shall be My son.

⁸ But as for the cowards and the ignoble and the contemptible and the cravenly lacking in courage and the cowardly submissive, and as for the unbelieving and faithless, and as for the depraved and defiled with abominations, and as for murderers and the lewd and adulterous and the practicers of magic arts and the idolaters (those who give supreme devotion to anyone or anything other than God) and all liars (those who knowingly convey untruth by word or deed)—[all of these shall have] their part in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone. This is the second death.^(C)

⁹ Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven final plagues (afflictions, calamities) came and spoke to me. He said, Come with me! I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.

¹⁰ Then in the Spirit He conveyed me away to a vast and lofty mountain and exhibited to me the holy (hallowed, consecrated) city of Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God,^(D)

¹¹ Clothed in God’s glory [in all its splendor and radiance]. The luster of it resembled a rare and most precious jewel, like jasper, shining clear as crystal.

¹² It had a massive and high wall with twelve [large] gates, and at the gates [there were stationed] twelve angels, and [on the gates] the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were written:^(E)

¹³ On the east side three gates, on the north side three gates, on the south side three gates, and on the west side three gates.

¹⁴ And the wall of the city had twelve foundation [stones], and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

¹⁵ And he who spoke to me had a golden measuring reed (rod) to measure the city and its gates and its wall.^(F)

¹⁶ The city lies in a square, its length being the same as its width. And he measured the city with his reed—12,000 stadia (about 1,500 miles); its length and width and height are the same.

¹⁷ He measured its wall also—144 cubits (about 72 yards) by a man’s measure [^[a]of a cubit from his elbow to his third fingertip], which is [the measure] of the angel.

¹⁸ The wall was built of jasper, while the city [itself was of] pure gold, clear and transparent like glass.

¹⁹ The foundation [stones] of the wall of the city were ornamented with all of the precious stones. The first foundation [stone] was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony (or white agate), the fourth emerald,^(G)

²⁰ The fifth onyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst.

²¹ And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each separate gate being built of one solid pearl. And the main street (the broadway) of the city was of gold as pure and translucent as glass.

²² I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Omnipotent [Himself] and the Lamb [Himself] are its temple.

²³ And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon to give light to it, for the splendor and radiance (glory) of God illuminate it, and the Lamb is its lamp.^(H)

²⁴ The nations shall walk by its light and the rulers and leaders of the earth shall bring into it their glory.

²⁵ And its gates shall never be closed by day, and there shall be no night there.^(I)

²⁶ They shall bring the glory (the splendor and majesty) and the honor of the nations into it.

²⁷ But nothing that defiles or profanes or is ^[b]unwashed shall ever enter it, nor anyone who commits abominations (unclean, detestable, morally repugnant things) or practices falsehood, but only those whose names are recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.