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Psalm 84

The Joy of Worship in the Temple

To the leader: according to The Gittith. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.
¹ How lovely is your dwelling place,
   O Lord of hosts!
² My soul longs, indeed it faints
   for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
   to the living God.

³ Even the sparrow finds a home,
   and the swallow a nest for herself,
   where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
   my King and my God.
⁴ Happy are those who live in your house,
   ever singing your praise.
          Selah

⁵ Happy are those whose strength is in you,
   in whose heart are the highways to Zion.^*
6 As they go through the valley of Baca
   they make it a place of springs;
   the early rain also covers it with pools.
⁷ They go from strength to strength;
   the God of gods will be seen in Zion.

⁸ O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
   give ear, O God of Jacob!
          Selah
⁹ Behold our shield, O God;
   look on the face of your anointed.

¹⁰ For a day in your courts is better
   than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
   than live in the tents of wickedness.
¹¹ For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
   he bestows favour and honour.
No good thing does the Lord withhold
   from those who walk uprightly.
¹² O Lord of hosts,
   happy is everyone who trusts in you.

Elijah Predicts a Drought

17Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe^* in Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.’ ²The word of the Lord came to him, saying, ³‘Go from here and turn eastwards, and hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. ⁴You shall drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’ ⁵So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and lived by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. ⁶The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the wadi. ⁷But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

The Widow of Zarephath

8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁹‘Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ ¹⁰So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.’ ¹¹As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’ ¹²But she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.’ ¹³Elijah said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.’ ¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

Elijah Revives the Widow’s Son

17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. ¹⁸She then said to Elijah, ‘What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!’ ¹⁹But he said to her, ‘Give me your son.’ He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. ²⁰He cried out to the Lord, ‘O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?’ ²¹Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, ‘O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.’ ²²The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. ²³Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, ‘See, your son is alive.’ ²⁴So the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.’

22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth^* so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply^* from the heart.^{* 23}You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.^{* 24}For
‘All flesh is like grass
   and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
   and the flower falls,
²⁵ but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’
That word is the good news that was announced to you.

The Living Stone and a Chosen People

2Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. ²Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— ³if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built^* into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶For it stands in scripture:
‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
   a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him^* will not be put to shame.’
⁷To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
‘The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the very head of the corner’,
⁸and
‘A stone that makes them stumble,
   and a rock that makes them fall.’
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,^* in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
¹⁰ Once you were not a people,
   but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
   but now you have received mercy.

Psalm 85

Prayer for the Restoration of God’s Favour

To the leader. Of the Korahites. A Psalm.
¹ Lord, you were favourable to your land;
   you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
² You forgave the iniquity of your people;
   you pardoned all their sin.
          Selah
³ You withdrew all your wrath;
   you turned from your hot anger.

⁴ Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
   and put away your indignation towards us.
⁵ Will you be angry with us for ever?
   Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
⁶ Will you not revive us again,
   so that your people may rejoice in you?
⁷ Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,
   and grant us your salvation.

⁸ Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
   for he will speak peace to his people,
   to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.^*
9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,
   that his glory may dwell in our land.

¹⁰ Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
   righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
¹¹ Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
   and righteousness will look down from the sky.
¹² The Lord will give what is good,
   and our land will yield its increase.
¹³ Righteousness will go before him,
   and will make a path for his steps.

13On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.

Idolatry Cut Off

2 On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more; and also I will remove from the land the prophets and the unclean spirit. ³And if any prophets appear again, their fathers and mothers who bore them will say to them, ‘You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the Lord’; and their fathers and their mothers who bore them shall pierce them through when they prophesy. ⁴On that day the prophets will be ashamed, every one, of their visions when they prophesy; they will not put on a hairy mantle in order to deceive, ⁵but each of them will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the soil; for the land has been my possession^* since my youth.’ ⁶And if anyone asks them, ‘What are these wounds on your chest?’^* the answer will be ‘The wounds I received in the house of my friends.’

The Shepherd Struck, the Flock Scattered

⁷ ‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
   against the man who is my associate,’

says the Lord of hosts.
Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered;
   I will turn my hand against the little ones.
⁸ In the whole land, says the Lord,
   two-thirds shall be cut off and perish,
   and one-third shall be left alive.
⁹ And I will put this third into the fire,
   refine them as one refines silver,
   and test them as gold is tested.
They will call on my name,
   and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
   and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’

13 ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.^{* 15}Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell^* as yourselves.

16 ‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.” ¹⁷You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸And you say, “Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.” ¹⁹How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; ²¹and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; ²²and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

23 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. ²⁴You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

25 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup,^* so that the outside also may become clean.

27 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. ²⁸So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, ³⁰and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” ³¹Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. ³²Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. ³³You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?^{* 34}Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, ³⁵so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.

The Lament over Jerusalem

37 ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁸See, your house is left to you, desolate.^{* 39}For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’