Lectionary 31, Year A

⁵ The LORD says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him: ⁶ “Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them. ⁷ The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from God.” ⁸ But as for me, I am full of power by the LORD’s Spirit, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin. ⁹ Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity. ¹⁰ They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. ¹¹ Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on the LORD, and say, “Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will come on us.” ¹² Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

¹ Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men. ² For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? ³ Oh, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill, to your tents. ⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. I will praise you on the harp, God, my God. ⁵ Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him: my Savior, my helper, and my God.

⁹ For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the Good News of God. ¹⁰ You are witnesses with God how holy, righteously, and blamelessly we behaved ourselves toward you who believe. ¹¹ As you know, we exhorted, comforted, and implored every one of you, as a father does his own children, ¹² to the end that you should walk worthily of God, who calls you into his own Kingdom and glory. ¹³ For this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that when you received from us the word of the message of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also works in you who believe.