Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

98 A psalm for David himself. The Lord hath reigned, let the people be angry: he that sitteth on the cherubims: let the earth be moved.

² The Lord is great in Sion, and high above all people.

³ Let them give praise to thy great name: for it is terrible and holy:

⁴ And the king's honour loveth judgment. Thou hast prepared directions: thou hast done judgment and justice in Jacob.

⁵ Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore his footstool, for it is holy.

⁶ Moses and Aaron among his priests: and Samuel among them that call upon his name. They called upon the Lord, and he heard them:

⁷ He spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud. They kept his testimonies, and the commandment which he gave them.

⁸ Thou didst hear them, O Lord our God: thou wast a merciful God to them, and taking vengeance on all their inventions.

⁹ Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore at his holy mountain: for the Lord our God is holy.

21 And there was a famine in the days of David for three years successively: and David consulted the oracle of the Lord. And the Lord said: It is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gabaonites.

² Then the king, calling for the Gabaonites, said to them: (Now the Gabaonites were not of the children of Israel, but the remains of the Amorrhites: I and the children of Israel had sworn to them, and Saul sought to slay them out of zeal, as it were for the children of Israel and Juda:)

³ David therefore said to the Gabaonites: What shall I do for you? and what shall be the atonement for you, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?

⁴ And the Gabaonites said to him: We have no contest about silver and gold, but against Saul and against his house: neither do we desire that any man be slain of Israel. And the king said to them: What will you then that I should do for you?

⁵ And they said to the king: The man that crushed us and oppressed us unjustly, we must destroy in such manner that there be not so much as one left of his stock in all the coasts of Israel.

⁶ Let seven men of his children be delivered unto us, that we may crucify them to the Lord in Gabaa of Saul, once the chosen of the Lord. And the king said: I will give them.

⁷ And the king spared Miphiboseth the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord, that had been between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

⁸ So the king took the two sons of Respha the daughter of Aia, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni, and Miphiboseth: and the five sons of Michol the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Hadriel the son of Berzellai, that was of Molathi:

⁹ And gave them into the hands of the Gabaonites: and they crucified them on a hill before the Lord: and these seven died together in the first days of the harvest, when the barley began to be reaped.

¹⁰ And Respha the daughter of Aia took haircloth, and spread it under her upon the rock from the beginning of the harvest, till water dropped upon them out of heaven: and suffered neither the birds to tear them by day, nor the beasts by night.

¹¹ And it was told David, what Respha the daughter of Aia, the concubine of Saul, had done.

¹² And David went, and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabes Galaad, who had stolen them from the street of Bethsan, where the Philistines had hanged them when they had slain Saul in Gelboe.

¹³ And he brought from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, and they gathered up the bones of them that were crucified,

¹⁴ And they buried them with the bones of Saul, and of Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin, in the side, in the sepulchre of Cis his father: and they did all that the king had commanded, and God shewed mercy again to the land after these things.

³ We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you towards each other, aboundeth:

⁴ So that we ourselves also glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith, and in all your persecutions and tribulations, which you endure,

⁵ For an example of the just judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which also you suffer.

⁶ Seeing it is a just thing with God to repay tribulation to them that trouble you:

⁷ And to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with the angels of his power:

⁸ In a flame of fire, giving vengeance to them who know not God, and who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹ Who shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction, from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of his power:

¹⁰ When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be made wonderful in all them who have believed; because our testimony was believed upon you in that day.

¹¹ Wherefore also we pray always for you; that our God would make you worthy of his vocation, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith in power;

¹² That the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ.