Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

70 A psalm for David. Of the sons of Jonadab, and the former captives. In thee, O Lord, I have hoped, let me never be put to confusion:

² Deliver me in thy justice, and rescue me. Incline thy ear unto me, and save me.

³ Be thou unto me a God, a protector, and a place of strength: that thou mayst make me safe. For thou art my firmament and my refuge.

⁴ Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the sinner, and out of the hand of the transgressor of the law and of the unjust.

⁵ For thou art my patience, O Lord: my hope, O Lord, from my youth;

⁶ By thee have I been confirmed from the womb: from my mother's womb thou art my protector. Of thee shall I continually sing:

⁷ I run become unto many as a wonder, but thou art a strong helper.

⁸ Let my mouth be filled with praise, that I may sing thy glory; thy greatness all the day long.

⁹ Cast me not off in the time of old age: when my strength shall fail, do not thou forsake me.

¹⁰ For my enemies have spoken against me; and they that watched my soul have consulted together,

¹¹ Saying: God hath forsaken him: pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him.

¹² O God, be not thou far from me: O my God, make haste to my help.

¹³ Let them be confounded and come to nothing that detract my soul; let them be covered with confusion and shame that seek my hurt.

¹⁴ But I will always hope; and will add to all thy praise.

¹⁵ My mouth shall shew forth thy justice; thy salvation all the day long. Because I have not known learning,

¹⁶ I will enter into the powers of the Lord: O Lord, I will be mindful of thy justice alone.

¹⁷ Thou hast taught me, O God, from my youth: and till now I will declare thy wonderful works.

¹⁸ And unto old age and grey hairs: O God, forsake me not, Until I shew forth thy arm to all the generation that is to come: Thy power,

¹⁹ And thy justice, O God, even to the highest great things thou hast done: O God, who is like to thee?

²⁰ How great troubles hast thou shewn me, many and grievous: and turning thou hast brought me to life, and hast brought me back again from the depths of the earth:

²¹ Thou hast multiplied thy magnificence; and turning to me thou hast comforted me.

²² For I will also confess to thee thy truth with the instruments of psaltery: O God, I will sing to thee with the harp, thou holy one of Israel.

²³ My lips shall greatly rejoice, when I shall sing to thee; and my soul which thou hast redeemed.

²⁴ Yea and my tongue shall meditate on thy justice all the day; when they shall be confounded and put to shame that seek evils to me.

3 Hear the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O ye children of Israel: concerning the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying:

² You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.

³ Shall two walk together except they be agreed?

⁴ Will a lion roar in the forest, if he have no prey? will the lion's whelp cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?

⁵ Will the bird fall into the snare upon the earth, if there be no fowler? Shall the snare be taken up from the earth, before it hath taken somewhat?

⁶ Shall the trumpet sound in a city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord hath not done?

⁷ For the Lord God doth nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.

⁸ The lion shall roar, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who shall not prophesy?

⁹ Publish it in the houses of Azotus, and in the houses of the land of Egypt, and say: Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the many follies in the midst thereof, and them that suffer oppression in the inner rooms thereof.

¹⁰ And they have not known to do the right thing, saith the Lord, storing up iniquity, and robberies in their houses.

¹¹ Therefore thus saith the Lord God: The land shall be in tribulation, and shall be compassed about: and thy strength shall be taken away from thee, and thy houses shall be spoiled.

¹² Thus saith the Lord: As if a shepherd should get out of the lion's mouth two legs, or the tip of the ear: so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria, in a piece of a bed, and in the couch of Damascus.

¹³ And the sixth angel sounded the trumpet: and I heard a voice from the four horns of the great altar, which is before the eyes of God,

¹⁴ Saying to the sixth angel, who had the trumpet: Loose the four angels, who are bound in the great river Euphrates.

¹⁵ And the four angels were loosed, who were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year: for to kill the third part of men.

¹⁶ And the number of the army of horsemen was twenty thousand times ten thousand. And I heard the number of them.

¹⁷ And thus I saw the horses in the vision: and they that sat on them, had breastplates of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone, and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions: and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone.

¹⁸ And by these three plagues was slain the third part of men, by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

¹⁹ For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails. For, their tails are like to serpents, and have heads: and with them they hurt.

²⁰ And the rest of the men, who were not slain by these plagues, did not do penance from the works of their hands, that they should not adore devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

²¹ Neither did they penance from their murders, nor from their sorceries, nor from their fornication, nor from their thefts.