Psalm 89:20–29

²⁰I have found David, my servant;
with my holy oil I have anointed him,
²¹so that my hand shall be established with him;
my arm also shall strengthen him.
²²The enemy shall not outwit him;
the wicked shall not humble him.
²³I will crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.
²⁴My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him,
and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
²⁵I will set his hand on the sea
and his right hand on the rivers.
²⁶He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father,
my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’
²⁷And I will make him the firstborn,
the highest of the kings of the earth.
²⁸My steadfast love I will keep for him forever,
and my covenant will stand firm for him.
²⁹I will establish his offspring forever
and his throne as the days of the heavens.

Old Testament Reading Isaiah 29:15—30:14

¹⁵Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,
whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
¹⁶You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
“He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
“He has no understanding”?
¹⁷Is it not yet a very little while
until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?
¹⁸In that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
¹⁹The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
²⁰For the ruthless shall come to nothing
and the scoffer cease,
and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
²¹who by a word make a man out to be an offender,
and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,
and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.

²²Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:

“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,
no more shall his face grow pale.
²³For when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
²⁴And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding,
and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

¹“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord,
“who carry out a plan, but not mine,
and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit,
that they may add sin to sin;
²who set out to go down to Egypt,
without asking for my direction,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh
and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!
³Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame,
and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.
⁴For though his officials are at Zoan
and his envoys reach Hanes,
⁵everyone comes to shame
through a people that cannot profit them,
that brings neither help nor profit,
but shame and disgrace.”

⁶An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb.

Through a land of trouble and anguish,
from where come the lioness and the lion,
the adder and the flying fiery serpent,
they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,
and their treasures on the humps of camels,
to a people that cannot profit them.
⁷Egypt’s help is worthless and empty;
therefore I have called her
“Rahab who sits still.”

⁸And now, go, write it before them on a tablet
and inscribe it in a book,
that it may be for the time to come
as a witness forever.
⁹For they are a rebellious people,
lying children,
children unwilling to hear
the instruction of the Lord;
¹⁰who say to the seers, “Do not see,”
and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
prophesy illusions,
¹¹leave the way, turn aside from the path,
let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
¹²Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,
“Because you despise this word
and trust in oppression and perverseness
and rely on them,
¹³therefore this iniquity shall be to you
like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse,
whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;
¹⁴and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel
that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a shard is found
with which to take fire from the hearth,
or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

New Testament Reading Revelation 1

¹The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, ²who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. ³Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

⁴John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, ⁵and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood ⁶and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. ⁷Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

⁹I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. ¹⁰I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet ¹¹saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”

¹²Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. ¹⁴The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, ¹⁵his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. ¹⁶In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

¹⁷When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, ¹⁸and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. ¹⁹Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. ²⁰As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”