Readings for Lent and Easter

⁴ Those who hate me without cause are more than the hairs of my head; those who would cut me off and destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully, are many and mighty. I am [forced] to restore what I did not steal.^(A)

⁵ O God, You know my folly and blundering; my sins and my guilt are not hidden from You.

⁶ Let not those who wait and hope and look for You, O Lord of hosts, be put to shame through me; let not those who seek and inquire for and require You [as their vital necessity] be brought to confusion and dishonor through me, O God of Israel.

⁷ Because for Your sake I have borne taunt and reproach; confusion and shame have covered my face.

⁸ I have become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to my mother’s children.^(B)

⁹ For zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches and insults of those who reproach and insult You have fallen upon me.^(C)

¹⁰ When I wept and humbled myself with fasting, I was jeered at and humiliated;

¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword (an object of scorn) to them.

¹² They who sit in [the city’s] gate talk about me, and I am the song of the drunkards.