Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

87 A canticle of a psalm for the sons of Core: unto the end, for Maheleth, to answer understanding of Eman the Ezrahite.

² O Lord, the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day, and in the night before thee.

³ Let my prayer come in before thee: incline thy ear to my petition.

⁴ For my soul is filled with evils: and my life hath drawn nigh to hell.

⁵ I am counted among them that go down to the pit: I am become as a man without help,

⁶ Free among the dead. Like the slain sleeping in the sepulchres, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cast off from thy hand.

⁷ They have laid me in the lower pit: in the dark places, and in the shadow of death.

⁸ Thy wrath is strong over me: and all thy waves thou hast brought in upon me.

⁹ Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me: they have set me an abomination to themselves. I was delivered up, and came not forth:

¹⁰ My eyes languished through poverty. All the day I cried to thee, O Lord: I stretched out my hands to thee.

¹¹ Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? or shall physicians raise to life, and give praise to thee?

¹² Shall any one in the sepulchre declare thy mercy: and thy truth in destruction?

¹³ Shall thy wonders be known in the dark; and thy justice in the land of forgetfulness?

¹⁴ But I, O Lord, have cried to thee: and in the morning my prayer shall prevent thee.

¹⁵ Lord, why castest thou off my prayer: why turnest thou away thy face from me?

¹⁶ I am poor, and in labours from my youth: and being exalted have been humbled and troubled.

¹⁷ Thy wrath hath come upon me: and thy terrors have troubled me.

¹⁸ They have come round about me like water all the day: they have compassed me about together.

¹⁹ Friend and neighbour thou hast put far from me: and my acquaintance, because of misery.

⁸ Bring forth the people that are blind, and have eyes: that are deaf, and have ears.

⁹ All the nations are assembled together, and the tribes are gathered: who among you can declare this, and shall make us hear the former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, let them be justified, and hear, and say: It is truth.

¹⁰ You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that you may know, and believe me, and understand that I myself am. Before me there was no God formed, and after me there shall be none.

¹¹ I am, I am the Lord: and there is no saviour besides me.

¹² I have declared, and have saved. I have made it heard, and there was no strange one among you. You are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and I am God.

¹³ And from the beginning I am the same, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall turn it away?

¹³ For I say to you, Gentiles: as long indeed as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will honour my ministry,

¹⁴ If, by any means, I may provoke to emulation them who are my flesh, and may save some of them.

¹⁵ For if the loss of them be the reconciliation of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

¹⁶ For if the firstfruit be holy, so is the lump also: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷ And if some of the branches be broken, and thou, being a wild olive, art ingrafted in them, and art made partaker of the root, and of the fatness of the olive tree,

¹⁸ Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

¹⁹ Thou wilt say then: The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.

²⁰ Well: because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith: be not highminded, but fear.

²¹ For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee.

²² See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity; but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

²³ And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.

²⁴ For if thou wert cut out of the wild olive tree, which is natural to thee; and, contrary to nature, were grafted into the good olive tree; how much more shall they that are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

²⁵ For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, (lest you should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in.

²⁶ And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

²⁷ And this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away their sins.

²⁸ As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers.

²⁹ For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.