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August 29, 2023
Isaiah 26-29; Psalm 65; 1 Corinthians 4 (NRSV)
Isaías 26-29, Salmos 65, 1 Corintios 4 (RVR1960)
Isaiah 26-29
Judah’s Song of Victory
26 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
he sets up walls and bulwarks as a safeguard.
2 Open the gates,
so that the righteous nation that maintains faithfulness
may enter in.
3 Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace,
in peace because they trust in you.
4 Trust in the Lord forever,
for in the Lord God
you have an everlasting rock.
5 For he has brought low
the inhabitants of the height;
the lofty city he lays low.
He lays it low to the ground,
casts it to the dust.
6 The foot tramples it,
the feet of the poor,
the steps of the needy.
7 The way of the righteous is level;
straight is the path of the righteous that you clear.
8 In the path of your judgments,
O Lord, we have placed hope;
your name and your renown
are the soul’s desire.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 If favor is shown to the wicked,
they do not learn righteousness;
they corrupt what is upright on the earth
and do not see the majesty of the Lord.
11 O Lord, your hand is lifted up,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be ashamed.
Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
12 O Lord, may you ordain peace for us,
for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.
13 O Lord our God,
other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but we acknowledge your name alone.
14 The dead do not live;
shades do not rise
because you have punished and destroyed them
and wiped out all memory of them.
15 But you have increased the nation, O Lord;
you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16 O Lord, in distress they sought you;
they poured out a prayer
when your chastening was on them.
17 Like a woman with child
about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pain,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
18 we were with child; we writhed,
but we gave birth only to wind.
We have won no victories on earth,
and no one is born to inhabit the world.
19 Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise.
Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy!
For your dew is a radiant dew,
and the earth will give birth to those long dead.
20 Come, my people, enter your chambers,
and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until the wrath is past.
21 For the Lord comes out from his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
the earth will disclose the blood shed on it
and will no longer cover its slain.
Israel’s Redemption
27 On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
2 On that day:
A pleasant vineyard—sing about it!
3 I, the Lord, am its keeper;
every moment I water it.
I guard it night and day
so that no one can harm it;
4 I have no wrath.
If it gives me thorns and briers,
I will march to battle against it.
I will burn it up.
5 Or else let it cling to me for protection;
let it make peace with me;
let it make peace with me.
6 In days to come Jacob shall take root;
Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots
and fill the whole world with fruit.
7 Has he struck them down as he struck down those who struck them?
Or have they been killed as their killers were killed?
8 By expulsion, by exile you struggled against them;
with his fierce blast he removed them in the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be expiated,
and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altars
like chalkstones crushed to pieces;
no sacred poles or incense altars will remain standing.
10 For the fortified city is solitary,
a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
the calves graze there;
there they lie down and strip its branches.
11 When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without understanding;
therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;
he who formed them will show them no favor.
12 On that day the Lord will thresh from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one, O people of Israel. 13 And on that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Judgment on Corrupt Rulers, Priests, and Prophets
28 Woe to the proud garland of the drunkards of Ephraim
and the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
at the head of the fertile valley,
those overcome with wine!
2 See, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong,
like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest,
like a storm of mighty, overflowing waters;
with force he will hurl them down to the earth.
3 Trampled under foot will be
the proud garland of the drunkards of Ephraim.
4 And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,
at the head of the fertile valley,
will be like a first-ripe fig before the summer;
whoever sees it eats it up
as soon as it comes to hand.
5 On that day the Lord of hosts will be a garland of glory
and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people
6 and a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment
and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
7 These also reel with wine
and stagger with strong drink;
the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink;
they are confused with wine;
they stagger with strong drink;
they err in vision;
they stumble in giving judgment.
8 All tables are covered with filthy vomit;
no place is clean.
9 “Whom will he teach knowledge,
and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from milk,
those taken from the breast?
10 For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little.”
11 Truly, with stammering lip
and with another tongue
he will speak to this people,
12 to whom he has said,
“This is rest;
give rest to the weary,
and this is repose,”
yet they would not hear.
13 Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them,
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little,”
in order that they may go and fall backward
and be broken and snared and taken.
14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers
who rule this people in Jerusalem.
15 Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
and with Sheol we have an agreement;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through
it will not come to us,
for we have made lies our refuge,
and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
16 therefore thus says the Lord God,
“See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation:
‘One who trusts will not panic.’
17 And I will make justice the line
and righteousness the plummet;
hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
and waters will overwhelm the shelter.
18 Then your covenant with death will be annulled,
and your agreement with Sheol will not stand;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through,
you will be beaten down by it.
19 As often as it passes through, it will take you,
for morning by morning it will pass through,
by day and by night,
and it will be sheer terror to understand the message.”
20 For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it,
and the covering is too narrow to wrap oneself in it.
21 For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim;
he will rage as in the valley of Gibeon
to do his deed—strange is his deed!—
and to work his work—alien is his work!
22 Now therefore do not scoff,
or your bonds will be made stronger,
for I have heard a decree of destruction
from the Lord God of hosts upon the whole land.
23 Listen and hear my voice;
Pay attention and hear my speech.
24 Do those who plow for sowing plow continually?
Do they continually open and harrow their ground?
25 When they have leveled its surface,
do they not scatter dill, sow cumin,
and plant wheat in rows
and barley in its proper place
and spelt as the border?
26 For they are well instructed;
their God teaches them.
27 For dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin,
but dill is beaten out with a stick
and cumin with a rod.
28 Grain is crushed for bread,
but one does not thresh it forever;
one drives the cart wheel and horses over it
but does not pulverize it.
29 This also comes from the Lord of hosts;
he is wonderful in counsel
and excellent in wisdom.
The Siege of Jerusalem
29 Woe to Ariel, Ariel,
the city where David encamped!
Add year to year;
let the festivals run their round.
2 Yet I will oppress Ariel,
and there shall be moaning and lamentation,
and you shall be to me like an Ariel.
3 And like David I will encamp against you;
I will besiege you with towers
and raise siegeworks against you.
4 Then deep from the earth you shall speak;
from low in the dust your words shall come;
your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.
5 But the multitude of your arrogant ones shall be like fine dust
and the multitude of tyrants like flying chaff.
And in an instant, suddenly,
6 you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire.
7 And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
all that fight against her and her stronghold and who distress her,
shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
8 Just as when a hungry person dreams of eating
and wakes up still hungry
or a thirsty person dreams of drinking
and wakes up faint, still thirsty,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.
9 Be astounded and stunned;
blind yourselves and be blind!
Be drunk but not from wine;
stagger but not from strong drink!
10 For the Lord has poured out upon you
a spirit of deep sleep;
he has closed your eyes (the prophets)
and covered your heads (the seers).
11 The vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed document. If it is given to those who can read with the command, “Read this,” they say, “We cannot, for it is sealed.” 12 And if it is given to those who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” they say, “We cannot read.”
13 The Lord said:
Because these people draw near with their mouths
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me
and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote,
14 so I will again do
amazing things with this people,
shocking and amazing.
The wisdom of their wise shall perish,
and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden.
15 Woe to those who hide a plan too deep for the Lord,
whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
16 You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay?
Shall the thing made say of its maker,
“He did not make me,”
or the thing formed say of the one who formed it,
“He has no understanding”?
Hope for the Future
17 Shall not Lebanon in a very little while
become a fruitful field
and the fruitful field be regarded as a forest?
18 On that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a scroll,
and freed from gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
19 The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the tyrant shall be no more,
and the scoffer shall cease to be;
all those alert to do evil shall be cut off—
21 those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit,
who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate
and undermine justice for the one in the right.
22 Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
“No longer shall Jacob be ashamed;
no longer shall his face grow pale.
23 For when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 And those who err in spirit will come to understanding,
and those who grumble will accept instruction.”
Psalm 65
Thanksgiving for Earth’s Bounty
To the leader. A Psalm of David. A Song.
1 Praise is due to you,
O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed,
2 O you who answer prayer!
To you all flesh shall come.
3 When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us,
you forgive our transgressions.
4 Happy are those whom you choose and bring near
to live in your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
your holy temple.
5 By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,
O God of our salvation;
you are the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas.
6 By your strength you established the mountains;
you are girded with might.
7 You silence the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples.
8 Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;
you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.
9 You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain,
for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow;
the hills gird themselves with joy;
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks;
the valleys deck themselves with grain;
they shout and sing together for joy.
1 Corinthians 4
The Ministry of the Apostles
4 Think of us in this way: as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.
6 I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, so that you may learn through us what “Not beyond what is written” means, so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive?
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! If only you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to humans. 10 We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are sensible people in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored. 11 To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are naked and beaten and homeless, 12 and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.
Fatherly Admonition
14 I am not writing this to make you ashamed but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I fathered you through the gospel. 16 I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me. 17 For this reason I sent you Timothy, who is my beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church. 18 But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. 21 What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
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