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.

¹⁸ But I said unto their sons in the wilderness: Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, neither keep their laws, nor defile yourselves with their idols:

¹⁹ I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my rights, and do them;

²⁰ and hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.

²¹ Notwithstanding, the sons rebelled against me: they did not walk in my statutes, nor keep my rights to do them, by which the man that does them shall live by them; they polluted my Sabbaths; then I said: I would pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.

²² Nevertheless, I withdrew my hand and intervened for my name’s sake that it should not be polluted in the sight of the Gentiles in whose sight I brought them forth.

²³ I lifted up my hand unto them also in the wilderness with an oath that I would scatter them among the Gentiles and disperse them through the countries

²⁴ because they had not executed my rights and had despised my statutes and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.

²⁵ For this reason I also gave them statutes that were not good and rights by which they could not live,

²⁶ and I polluted them in their offerings when they caused to pass through the fire all that opens the womb that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.

²⁷ ¶ Therefore, son of man, speak unto the house of Israel and say unto them, Thus hath the Lord GOD said: Even in this your fathers have blasphemed me when they committed rebellion against me.

²⁸ For when I had brought them into the land, for which I lifted up my hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offerings; there also they made their sweet savour and poured out there their drink offerings.

²⁹ Then I said unto them, What is the high place unto which ye go? And its name is called Bamah unto this day.

³⁰ Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus hath the Lord GOD said: Perchance are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and do ye commit whoredom after their abominations?

³¹ For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day; and shall I be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, said the Lord GOD, I will not be enquired of by you.

³² And that which ye think shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the Gentiles, as the families of the nations to serve wood and stone.

⁷ ¶ And to the angel of the congregation {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} in Philadelphia write; These things, saith he that is Holy and True, he who has the key of David, who opens and no one shuts and shuts, and no one opens;

⁸ I know thy works; behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no one can shut it, for thou hast a little strength and hast kept my word and hast not denied my name.

⁹ Behold, I give of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but do lie; behold, I will constrain them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee.

¹⁰ Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the entire world, to try those that dwell upon the earth.

¹¹ Behold, I come quickly; hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown.

¹² He that overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God which is the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from and with my God, and I will write upon him my new name.

¹³ He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the congregations. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}