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Psalm 99

1  The Lord is king: let the peoples tremble; ♦︎
   he is enthroned above the cherubim: let the earth shake.
2  The Lord is great in Zion ♦︎
   and high above all peoples.
3  Let them praise your name, which is great and awesome; ♦︎
   the Lord our God is holy.
4  Mighty king, who loves justice,
      you have established equity; ♦︎
   you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
5  Exalt the Lord our God; ♦︎
   bow down before his footstool, for he is holy.
6  Moses and Aaron among his priests
      and Samuel among those who call upon his name; ♦︎
   they called upon the Lord and he answered them.
7  He spoke to them out of the pillar of cloud; ♦︎
   they kept his testimonies and the law that he gave them.
8  You answered them, O Lord our God; ♦︎
   you were a God who forgave them
      and pardoned them for their offences.
9  Exalt the Lord our God
      and worship him upon his holy hill, ♦︎
   for the Lord our God is holy.

Eli’s Wicked Sons

11 Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, while the boy remained to minister to the Lord, in the presence of the priest Eli.

12 Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord ¹³or for the duties of the priests to the people. When anyone offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come, while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand, ¹⁴and he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot; all that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself.^* This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. ¹⁵Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest’s servant would come and say to the one who was sacrificing, ‘Give meat for the priest to roast; for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.’ ¹⁶And if the man said to him, ‘Let them burn the fat first, and then take whatever you wish’, he would say, ‘No, you must give it now; if not, I will take it by force.’ ¹⁷Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord; for they treated the offerings of the Lord with contempt.

God’s Wrath and Mercy

19 You will say to me then, ‘Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ ²⁰But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is moulded say to the one who moulds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ ²¹Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? ²²What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; ²³and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵As indeed he says in Hosea,
‘Those who were not my people I will call “my people”,
   and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved”. ’
²⁶ ‘And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people”,
   there they shall be called children of the living God.’

27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; ²⁸for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.’^{* 29}And as Isaiah predicted,
‘If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors^* to us,
   we would have fared like Sodom
   and been made like Gomorrah.’