Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Psalm.

¹ ¶ O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he has done marvellous things; his right hand has gotten him the victory, even the arm of his holiness.

² The LORD has made known his saving health; he has openly showed his righteousness in the sight of the Gentiles.

³ He has remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the saving health of our God.

⁴ ¶ Sing with joy unto the LORD, all the earth; lift up thy voice and rejoice and sing praises.

⁵ Sing praises unto the LORD with the harp, with the harp and the voice of a song.

⁶ With trumpets and the sound of the shofar make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.

⁷ Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof, the world and those that dwell therein.

⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains be joyful together

⁹ before the LORD; for he has come to judge the earth; with righteousness he shall judge the world and the peoples with equity.

21 ¶ Then there was a famine in the days of David for three consecutive years, and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is because of Saul and because of his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.

² And the king called the Gibeonites and said unto them: (now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the sons of Israel had sworn unto them, and Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah).

³ Therefore, David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make reconciliation that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD?

⁴ And the Gibeonites replied unto him, We have no quarrel regarding silver nor gold with Saul, nor with his house; neither do we desire that anyone in Israel should die. And he said unto them, What ye shall say that will I do for you.

⁵ And they answered the king, The man that consumed us and that devised against us, let us destroy him that nothing of him remains in any of the borders of Israel.

⁶ Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will disjoint them, hanging them from a tree, unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them.

⁷ But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the LORD’s oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

⁸ But the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she gave birth unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she had given birth unto Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite;

⁹ and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they disjointed them hanging them from a tree in the hill before the LORD; and they fell all seven together and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

¹⁰ ¶ And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it upon the rock from the beginning of harvest until water rained upon them out of heaven and allowed neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night.

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

¹² Then David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the men of Jabeshgilead, who had stolen them from the plaza of Bethshan where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa;

¹³ and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son; and they gathered the bones of those that had been disjointed by being hanged from a tree,

¹⁴ and they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan, his son, in the land of Benjamin in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish his father; and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was intreated for the land.

³ We must thank God always for you, brethren, as is due because your faith grows exceedingly, and the charity of each and every one of you toward each other abounds,

⁴ so that we ourselves glory in you in the congregations {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure and

⁵ ¶ in testimony of the just judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer,

⁶ seeing it is a just thing with God to recompense tribulation to those that trouble you

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

⁸ with flaming fire, to take vengeance on those that do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,

⁹ who shall be punished with eternal destruction by the presence of the Lord and by the glory of his power,

¹⁰ when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all those that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

¹¹ ¶ Therefore in this manner we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of his calling and fill each will with goodness and the work of faith with power

¹² that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be clarified in you, and ye in him, by the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.