Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁹⁷ O how I love Thy law! It is my meditation all the day.

⁹⁸ Thou, through Thy commandments, hast made me wiser than mine enemies; for Thy commands are ever with me.

⁹⁹ I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation.

¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts.

¹⁰¹ I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Thy word.

¹⁰² I have not departed from Thy judgments, for Thou hast taught me.

¹⁰³ How sweet are Thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

¹⁰⁴ Through Thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

9 Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting and with sackcloth and earth upon them.

² And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

³ And they stood up in their place and read in the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for onefourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed and worshiped the Lord their God.

⁴ Then stood up upon the stairs of the Levites, Jeshua and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and cried with a loud voice unto the Lord their God.

⁵ Then the Levites, Jeshua and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said: “Stand up and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever! And blessed be Thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise!

⁶ Thou, even Thou, art Lord alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein; and Thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshipeth Thee.

⁷ Thou art the Lord the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham;

⁸ and foundest his heart faithful before Thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites and the Girgashites—to give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed Thy words, for Thou art righteous”

⁹ and didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea;

¹⁰ and showedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh and on all his servants and on all the people of his land. For Thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them. So didst Thou get Thee a name, as it is this day.

¹¹ And Thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors Thou threwest into the deep, as a stone into the mighty waters.

¹² Moreover Thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.

¹³ Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai and spokest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments;

¹⁴ and madest known unto them Thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws by the hand of Moses Thy servant;

¹⁵ and gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which Thou hadst sworn to give them.

²¹ submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

²² Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord;

²³ for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and He is the savior of the body.

²⁴ Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it,

²⁶ that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word,

²⁷ that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.

²⁸ So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He hat loveth his wife loveth himself.

²⁹ For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.

³⁰ For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.

³¹ “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.”

³² This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

³³ Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

² “Honor thy father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise:

³ “that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.”

⁴ And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

⁵ Servants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ,

⁶ not with eyeservice as menpleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,

⁷ with good will doing service, as to the Lord and not to men,

⁸ knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive from the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

⁹ And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master also is in Heaven; neither is there respect of persons with Him.