Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

145 Alleluia, of Aggeus and Zacharias.

² Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. Put not your trust in princes:

³ In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.

⁴ His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish.

⁵ Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God:

⁶ Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.

⁷ Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered:

⁸ The Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just.

³ The shield of his mighty men is like fire, the men of the army are clad in scarlet, the reins of the chariot are flaming in the day of his preparation, and the drivers are stupefied.

⁴ They are in confusion in the ways, the chariots jostle one against another in the streets: their looks are like torches, like lightning running to and fro.

⁵ He will muster up his valiant men, they shall stumble in their march: they shall quickly get upon the walls thereof: and a covering shall be prepared.

⁶ The gates of the rivers are opened, and the temple is thrown down to the ground.

⁷ And the soldier is led away captive: and her bondwomen were led away mourning as doves, murmuring in their hearts.

⁸ And as for Ninive, her waters are like a great pool, but the men flee away. They cry: Stand, stand, but there is none that will return back.

⁹ Take ye the spoil of the silver, take the spoil of the gold: for there is no end of the riches of all the precious furniture.

¹⁰ She is destroyed, and rent, and torn: the heart melteth, and the knees fail, and all the loins lose their strength: and the faces of them all are as the blackness of a kettle.

¹¹ Where is now the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, to which the lion went, to enter in thither, the young lion, and there was none to make them afraid?

¹² The lion caught enough for his whelps, and killed for his lionesses: and he filled his holes with prey, and his den with rapine.

¹³ Behold I come against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will burn thy chariots even to smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey out of the land, and the voice of thy messengers shall be heard no more.

⁵ Try your own selves if you be in the faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobates?

⁶ But I trust that you shall know that we are not reprobates.

⁷ Now we pray God, that you may do no evil, not that we may appear approved, but that you may do that which is good, and that we may be as reprobates.

⁸ For we can do nothing against the truth; but for the truth.

⁹ For we rejoice that we are weak, and you are strong. This also we pray for, your perfection.

¹⁰ Therefore I write these things, being absent, that, being present, I may not deal more severely, according to the power which the Lord hath given me unto edification, and not unto destruction.