Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
12 O the happiness of the nation whose God [is] Jehovah, Of the people He did choose, For an inheritance to Him.
13 From the heavens hath Jehovah looked, He hath seen all the sons of men.
14 From the fixed place of His dwelling, He looked unto all inhabitants of the earth;
15 Who is forming their hearts together, Who is attending unto all their works.
16 The king is not saved by the multitude of a force. A mighty man is not delivered, By abundance of power.
17 A false thing [is] the horse for safety, And by the abundance of his strength He doth not deliver.
18 Lo, the eye of Jehovah [is] to those fearing Him, To those waiting for His kindness,
19 To deliver from death their soul, And to keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul hath waited for Jehovah, Our help and our shield [is] He,
21 For in Him doth our heart rejoice, For in His holy name we have trusted.
22 Let Thy kindness, O Jehovah, be upon us, As we have waited for Thee!
6 There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it [is] great on man:
2 A man to whom God giveth wealth, and riches, and honour, and there is no lack to his soul of all that he desireth, and God giveth him not power to eat of it, but a stranger eateth it; this [is] vanity, and it [is] an evil disease.
3 If a man doth beget a hundred, and live many years, and is great, because they are the days of his years, and his soul is not satisfied from the goodness, and also he hath not had a grave, I have said, `Better than he [is] the untimely birth.'
4 For in vanity he came in, and in darkness he goeth, and in darkness his name is covered,
5 Even the sun he hath not seen nor known, more rest hath this than that.
6 And though he had lived a thousand years twice over, yet good he hath not seen; to the same place doth not every one go?
7 And the chief priest said, `Are then these things so?'
2 and he said, `Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken: The God of the glory did appear to our father Abraham, being in Mesopotamia, before his dwelling in Haran,
3 and He said to him, Go forth out of thy land, and out of thy kindred, and come to a land that I shall shew thee.
4 `Then having come forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, he dwelt in Haran, and from thence, after the death of his father, He did remove him to this land wherein ye now dwell,
5 and He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a footstep, and did promise to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him -- he having no child.
6 `And God spake thus, That his seed shall be sojourning in a strange land, and they shall cause it to serve, and shall do it evil four hundred years,
7 and the nation whom they shall serve I will judge, said God; and after these things they shall come forth and shall do Me service in this place.
8 `And He gave to him a covenant of circumcision, and so he begat Isaac, and did circumcise him on the eighth day, and Isaac [begat] Jacob, and Jacob -- the twelve patriarchs;