Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Prayer for God to Be Near
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
13 How long will you forget me, Lord? Forever?
How long will you hide from me?
2 How long must I worry
and feel sad in my heart all day?
How long will my enemy win over me?
3 Lord, look at me.
Answer me, my God;
tell me, or I will die.
4 Otherwise my enemy will say, “I have won!”
Those against me will rejoice that I’ve been defeated.
5 I trust in your love.
My heart is happy because you saved me.
6 I sing to the Lord
because he has taken care of me.
Jerusalem Will Be Saved
12 This message is the word of the Lord to Israel. This is what the Lord says, who stretched out the skies, and laid the foundations of the earth, and put the human spirit within: 2 “I will make Jerusalem like a cup of poison to the nations around her. They will come and attack Jerusalem and Judah. 3 One day all the nations on earth will come together to attack Jerusalem, but I will make it like a heavy rock; anyone who tries to move it will get hurt. 4 At that time I will confuse every horse and cause its rider to go crazy,” says the Lord. “I will watch over Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the enemies. 5 Then the leaders of Judah will say to themselves, ‘The people of Jerusalem are strong, because the Lord All-Powerful is their God.’
6 “At that time I will make the leaders of Judah like a fire burning a stack of wood or like a fire burning straw. They will destroy all the people around them left and right. But the people of Jerusalem will remain safe.
7 “The Lord will save the homes of Judah first so that the honor given to David’s family and to the people of Jerusalem won’t be greater than the honor given to Judah. 8 At that time the Lord will protect the people in Jerusalem. Then even the weakest of them will be strong like David. And the family of David will be like God, like an angel of the Lord in front of them. 9 At that time I will go to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.
Crying for the One They Stabbed
10 “I will pour out on David’s family and the people in Jerusalem a spirit of kindness and mercy. They will look at me, the one they have stabbed, and they will cry like someone crying over the death of an only child. They will be as sad as someone who has lost a firstborn son. 11 At that time there will be much crying in Jerusalem, like the crying for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will cry, each family by itself: the family of David by itself and their wives by themselves, the family of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves, 13 the family of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves, the family of Shimei by itself and their wives by themselves, 14 and all the rest of the families by themselves and their wives by themselves.
13 “At that time a fountain will be open for David’s descendants and for the people of Jerusalem to cleanse them of their sin and uncleanness.”
9 “You must be careful. People will arrest you and take you to court and beat you in their synagogues. You will be forced to stand before kings and governors, to tell them about me. This will happen to you because you follow me. 10 But before these things happen, the Good News must be told to all people. 11 When you are arrested and judged, don’t worry ahead of time about what you should say. Say whatever is given you to say at that time, because it will not really be you speaking; it will be the Holy Spirit.
12 “Brothers will give their own brothers to be killed, and fathers will give their own children to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and cause them to be put to death. 13 All people will hate you because you follow me, but those people who keep their faith until the end will be saved.
14 “You will see ‘a blasphemous object that brings destruction’[a] standing where it should not be.” (You who read this should understand what it means.) “At that time, the people in Judea should run away to the mountains. 15 If people are on the roofs[b] of their houses, they must not go down or go inside to get anything out of their houses. 16 If people are in the fields, they must not go back to get their coats. 17 At that time, how terrible it will be for women who are pregnant or have nursing babies! 18 Pray that these things will not happen in winter, 19 because those days will be full of trouble. There will be more trouble than there has ever been since the beginning, when God made the world, until now, and nothing as bad will ever happen again. 20 God has decided to make that terrible time short. Otherwise, no one would go on living. But God will make that time short to help the people he has chosen. 21 At that time, someone might say to you, ‘Look, there is the Christ!’ Or another person might say, ‘There he is!’ But don’t believe them. 22 False Christs and false prophets will come and perform great wonders and miracles. They will try to fool even the people God has chosen, if that is possible. 23 So be careful. I have warned you about all this before it happens.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.