Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁷ He removed his back from the burdens: his hands had served in baskets.

⁸ Thou calledst upon me in affliction, and I delivered thee: I heard thee in the secret place of tempest: I proved thee at the waters of contradiction.

⁹ Hear, O my people, and I will testify to thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken to me,

¹⁰ There shall be no new god in thee: neither shalt thou adore a strange god.

¹¹ For I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

¹² But my people heard not my voice: and Israel hearkened not to me.

¹³ So I let them go according to the desires of their heart: they shall walk in their own inventions.

¹⁴ If my people had heard me: if Israel had walked in my ways:

¹⁵ I should soon have humbled their enemies, and laid my hand on them that troubled them.

¹⁴ Is Israel a bondman, or a homeborn slave? why then is he become prey?

¹⁵ The lions have roared upon him, and have made a noise, they have made his land a wilderness: his cities are burnt down and there is none to dwell in them.

¹⁶ The children also of Memphis, and of Taphnes have deflowered thee, even to the crown of the head.

¹⁷ Hath not this been done to thee, because thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God at that time, when he led thee by the way?

¹⁸ And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the troubled water? And what hast thou to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river?

¹⁹ Thy own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee. Know thou, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not with thee, saith the Lord the God of hosts.

²⁰ Of old time thou hast broken my yoke, thou hast burst my bands, and thou saidst: I will not serve. For on every high hill, and under every green tree thou didst prostitute thyself.

²¹ Yet I planted thee a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then art thou turned unto me into that which is good for nothing, O strange vineyard?

²² Though thou wash thyself with nitre, and multiply to thyself the herb borith, thou art stained in thy iniquity before me, saith the Lord God.

¹⁶ Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a festival day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths,

¹⁷ Which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.

¹⁸ Let no man seduce you, willing in humility, and religion of angels, walking in the things which he hath not seen, in vain puffed up by the sense of his flesh,

¹⁹ And not holding the head, from which the whole body, by joints and bands, being supplied with nourishment and compacted, groweth unto the increase of God.

²⁰ If then you be dead with Christ from the elements of this world, why do you yet decree as though living in the world?

²¹ Touch not, taste not, handle not:

²² Which all are unto destruction by the very use, according to the precepts and doctrines of men.

²³ Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in superstition and humility, and not sparing the body; not in any honour to the filling of the flesh.