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Psalm 58

1  Do you indeed speak justly, you mighty? ♦︎
   Do you rule the peoples with equity?
2  With unjust heart you act throughout the land; ♦︎
   your hands mete out violence.
3  The wicked are estranged, even from the womb; ♦︎
   those who speak falsehood go astray from their birth.
4  They are as venomous as a serpent; ♦︎
   they are like the deaf adder which stops its ears,
5  Which does not heed the voice of the charmers, ♦︎
   and is deaf to the skilful weaver of spells.
6  Break, O God, their teeth in their mouths; ♦︎
   smash the fangs of these lions, O Lord.
7  Let them vanish like water that runs away; ♦︎
   let them wither like trodden grass.
8  Let them be as the slimy track of the snail, ♦︎
   like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.
9  Before ever their pots feel the heat of the thorns, ♦︎
   green or blazing, let them be swept away.
10  The righteous will be glad when they see God’s vengeance; ♦︎
   they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
11  So that people will say,
      ‘Truly, there is a harvest for the righteous; ♦︎
   truly, there is a God who judges in the earth.’

15 I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the Lord, they shall no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind, or be remembered, or missed; nor shall another one be made. ¹⁷At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.

¹⁹ I thought
   how I would set you among my children,
and give you a pleasant land,
   the most beautiful heritage of all the nations.
And I thought you would call me, My Father,
   and would not turn from following me.
²⁰ Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband,
   so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel,

says the Lord.

²¹ A voice on the bare heights^* is heard,
   the plaintive weeping of Israel’s children,
because they have perverted their way,
   they have forgotten the Lord their God:
²² Return, O faithless children,
   I will heal your faithlessness.

‘Here we come to you;
   for you are the Lord our God.
²³ Truly the hills are^* a delusion,
   the orgies on the mountains.
Truly in the Lord our God
   is the salvation of Israel.

24 ‘But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had laboured, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. ²⁵Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonour cover us; for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.’

The Parable of the Great Dinner

15 One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, ‘Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!’ ¹⁶Then Jesus^* said to him, ‘Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. ¹⁷At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, “Come; for everything is ready now.” ¹⁸But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my apologies.” ¹⁹Another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my apologies.” ²⁰Another said, “I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.” ²¹So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” ²²And the slave said, “Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.” ²³Then the master said to the slave, “Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. ²⁴For I tell you,^* none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.” ’