Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

73 Understanding for Asaph. O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end: why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture?

² Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning. The sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed: mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt.

³ Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end; see what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

⁴ And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs,

⁵ And they knew not both in the going out and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees,

⁶ They have cut down at once the gates thereof, with axe and hatchet they have brought it down.

⁷ They have set fire to thy sanctuary: they have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth.

⁸ They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land.

⁹ Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet: and he will know us no more.

¹⁰ How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach: is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever?

¹¹ Why dost thou turn away thy hand: and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom for ever?

¹² But God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

¹³ Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.

¹⁴ Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians.

¹⁵ Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers.

¹⁶ Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun.

¹⁷ Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee.

¹⁸ Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name.

¹⁹ Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee: and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor.

²⁰ Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity.

²¹ Let not the humble be turned away with confusion: the poor and needy shall praise thy name.

²² Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day.

²³ Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually.

7 These things the Lord God shewed to me: and behold the locust was formed in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter rain, and lo, it was the latter rain after the king's mowing.

² And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, I said: O Lord God, be merciful, I beseech thee: who shall raise up Jacob, for he is very little?

³ The Lord had pity upon this: It shall not be, said the Lord.

⁴ These things the Lord God shewed to me: and behold the Lord called for judgment unto fire, and it devoured the great deep, and ate up a part at the same time.

⁵ And I said: O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee, who shall raise up Jacob, for he is a little one?

⁶ The Lord had pity upon this. Yea this also shall not be, said the Lord God.

¹⁸ This precept I commend to thee, O son Timothy; according to the prophecies going before on thee, that thou war in them a good warfare,

¹⁹ Having faith and a good conscience, which some rejecting have made shipwreck concerning the faith.

²⁰ Of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have delivered up to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.