Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
21 ¶ And thou, O GOD the Lord, do unto me for thy name’s sake; because thy mercy is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like the shadow when it declines; I am tossed up and down by the wind as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh fails for lack of fatness.
25 I have become a reproach unto them; when they looked upon me they shook their heads.
26 Help me, O LORD my God; O save me according to thy mercy,
27 that they may know that this is thy hand, that thou, O LORD, hast done it.
28 Let them curse, but bless thou; when they arise, let them be ashamed, but let thy slave rejoice.
29 Let those who speak evil against me falsely be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a mantle.
30 I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.
31 For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor in spirit to save his soul from those that judge him.
20 ¶ And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to enquire of the LORD and sat before me.
2 Then came the word of the LORD unto me, saying,
3 Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel and say unto them, Thus hath the Lord GOD said: Are ye come to enquire of me? As I live, said the Lord GOD, I will not be enquired of by you.
4 Dost thou desire to judge them? Dost thou desire to judge them, son of man? Notify them of the abominations of their fathers:
5 ¶ And say unto them, Thus hath the Lord GOD said; In the day when I chose Israel and lifted up my hand for the seed of the house of Jacob and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt when I lifted up my hand unto them, saying, I am the LORD your God;
6 in the day that I lifted up my hand unto them with an oath that I would bring them forth from the land of Egypt into a land that I had prepared for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the most beautiful of all lands,
7 then said I unto them, Cast away each one of you all worship of god fabricated by carnal appearance and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
8 But they rebelled against me and did not desire to hearken unto me; each one did not cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt; then I said, I will pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.
9 With all this, I intervened for my name’s sake that it should not be polluted before the Gentiles, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.
10 ¶ Therefore I took them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness;
11 and I gave them my statutes and declared unto them my rights, by which the man that does them shall live by them.
12 And I also gave them my sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctifies them.
13 But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they did not walk in my statutes, and they despised my rights, by which the man that does them shall live by them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted; therefore I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness to consume them.
14 But I intervened for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the Gentiles, in whose sight I brought them out.
15 Yet I also lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, with an oath that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the most beautiful of all lands,
16 because they despised my rights and did not walk in my statutes but polluted my Sabbaths, for their heart went after their idols.
17 With all this, my eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness.
7 ¶ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit saith, Today if ye will hear his voice,
8 harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 Where your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10 Therefore, I was indignant with that generation and said, They do always err from their heart, and they have not known my ways.
11 So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unfaithfulness, to depart from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;
15 while it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16 For some of those that came out of Egypt with Moses, when they had heard, did provoke; howbeit not all.
17 But with whom was he indignant forty years? Was it not with those that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom he swore that they should not enter into his rest, but to those that disobeyed?
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of their unbelief.
4 ¶ Let us, therefore, fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them, but it did not profit those that heard the word without mixing it with faith.
3 (For we who have believed do enter into the rest) as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he spoke in a certain place of the seventh day like this, And God rested the seventh day from all his works.
5 And in this place again, They shall not enter into my rest.
6 Seeing, therefore, it remains that some must enter therein, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter in because of disobedience;
7 Again, he determines a certain day, saying, Today, by David so long a time afterward; as it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day.
9 There remains therefore a rest {Gr. Sabbatismos} for the people of God.
10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
11 ¶ Let us therefore make haste to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience.
Copyright © 2013, 2020 by Ransom Press International