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Psalm 74

1  O God, why have you utterly disowned us? ♦︎
   Why does your anger burn
      against the sheep of your pasture?
2  Remember your congregation that you purchased of old, ♦︎
   the tribe you redeemed for your own possession,
      and Mount Zion where you dwelt.
3  Hasten your steps towards the endless ruins, ♦︎
   where the enemy has laid waste all your sanctuary.
4  Your adversaries roared in the place of your worship; ♦︎
   they set up their banners as tokens of victory.
5  Like men brandishing axes on high in a thicket of trees, ♦︎
   all her carved work they smashed down with hatchet and hammer.
6  They set fire to your holy place; ♦︎
   they defiled the dwelling place of your name
      and razed it to the ground.
7  They said in their heart, ‘Let us make havoc of them altogether,’ ♦︎
   and they burned down all the sanctuaries of God in the land.
8  There are no signs to see, not one prophet left, ♦︎
   not one among us who knows how long.
9  How long, O God, will the adversary scoff? ♦︎
   Shall the enemy blaspheme your name for ever?
10  Why have you withheld your hand ♦︎
   and hidden your right hand in your bosom?
11  Yet God is my king from of old, ♦︎
   who did deeds of salvation in the midst of the earth.
12  It was you that divided the sea by your might ♦︎
   and shattered the heads of the dragons on the waters;
13  You alone crushed the heads of Leviathan ♦︎
   and gave him to the beasts of the desert for food.
14  You cleft the rock for fountain and flood; ♦︎
   you dried up ever-flowing rivers.
15  Yours is the day, yours also the night; ♦︎
   you established the moon and the sun.
16  You set all the bounds of the earth; ♦︎
   you fashioned both summer and winter.
17  Remember now, Lord, how the enemy scoffed, ♦︎
   how a foolish people despised your name.
18  Do not give to wild beasts the soul of your turtle dove; ♦︎
   forget not the lives of your poor for ever.
19  Look upon your creation,
      for the earth is full of darkness, ♦︎
   full of the haunts of violence.
20  Let not the oppressed turn away ashamed, ♦︎
   but let the poor and needy praise your name.
21  Arise, O God, maintain your own cause; ♦︎
   remember how fools revile you all the day long.
22  Forget not the clamour of your adversaries, ♦︎
   the tumult of your enemies that ascends continually.

Israel’s Redemption

27On 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 on 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 that made them will not have compassion on them,
   he that formed them will show them no favour.

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. ¹³And 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.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

45 Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; ⁴⁶and he said, ‘It is written,
“My house shall be a house of prayer”;
   but you have made it a den of robbers.’

47 Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; ⁴⁸but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.