Psalm 56:1–2, 5–11, 13

¹Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;
all day long an attacker oppresses me;
²my enemies trample on me all day long,
for many attack me proudly.

⁵All day long they injure my cause;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
⁶They stir up strife, they lurk;
they watch my steps,
as they have waited for my life.
⁷For their crime will they escape?
In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

⁸You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
⁹Then my enemies will turn back
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
¹⁰In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
¹¹in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

¹³For you have delivered my soul from death,
yes, my feet from falling,
that I may walk before God
in the light of life.

Old Testament Reading Isaiah 14:1–23

¹For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. ²And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord’s land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them.

³When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, ⁴you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:

“How the oppressor has ceased,
the insolent fury ceased!
⁵The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,
the scepter of rulers,
⁶that struck the peoples in wrath
with unceasing blows,
that ruled the nations in anger
with unrelenting persecution.
⁷The whole earth is at rest and quiet;
they break forth into singing.
⁸The cypresses rejoice at you,
the cedars of Lebanon, saying,
‘Since you were laid low,
no woodcutter comes up against us.’
⁹Sheol beneath is stirred up
to meet you when you come;
it rouses the shades to greet you,
all who were leaders of the earth;
it raises from their thrones
all who were kings of the nations.
¹⁰All of them will answer
and say to you:
‘You too have become as weak as we!
You have become like us!’
¹¹Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
the sound of your harps;
maggots are laid as a bed beneath you,
and worms are your covers.
¹²“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
¹³You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
¹⁵But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
¹⁶Those who see you will stare at you
and ponder over you:
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
¹⁷who made the world like a desert
and overthrew its cities,
who did not let his prisoners go home?’
¹⁸All the kings of the nations lie in glory,
each in his own tomb;
¹⁹but you are cast out, away from your grave,
like a loathed branch,
clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword,
who go down to the stones of the pit,
like a dead body trampled underfoot.
²⁰You will not be joined with them in burial,
because you have destroyed your land,
you have slain your people.
“May the offspring of evildoers
nevermore be named!
²¹Prepare slaughter for his sons
because of the guilt of their fathers,
lest they rise and possess the earth,
and fill the face of the world with cities.”

²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, descendants and posterity,” says the Lord. ²³“And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of hosts.

New Testament Reading 2 Peter 3

¹This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, ²that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, ³knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. ⁴They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, ⁶and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. ⁷But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

⁸But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. ¹⁰But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

¹¹Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, ¹²waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! ¹³But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

¹⁴Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. ¹⁵And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. ¹⁷You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. ¹⁸But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.