Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

98 Sing to the LORD a new song; for He has done marvelous things! His right hand and His holy arm have gotten Him the victory.

² The LORD declared His salvation. He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.

³ He has remembered His mercy and His truth toward the House of Israel. All the ends of the Earth have seen the salvation of our God.

⁴ Sing loud to the LORD, all the Earth! Cry out and rejoice; and sing praises!

⁵ Sing praise to the LORD upon the harp, upon the harp with a singing voice.

⁶ With shofars and sound of trumpets sing loud before the LORD the King.

⁷ Let the sea roar and all that therein is, the world and those who dwell therein.

⁸ Let the floods clap their hands! Let the mountains rejoice together

⁹ before the LORD! For He has come to judge the Earth. With righteousness shall He judge the world, and the people with equity.

21 Then there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David asked counsel of the LORD. And the LORD answered: “It is for Saul, and for his bloody House, because he killed the [c]Gibeonites.”

² Then the king called the Gibeonites, and said to them…(Now, the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but a remnant of the Amorites, with whom the children of Israel had sworn peace. But Saul sought to kill them for his zeal toward the children of Israel and Judah.)

³ And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make the atonement, so that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD?”

⁴ The Gibeonites then answered him, “We will have no silver or gold from Saul, nor from his house. Nor shall you kill any man in Israel for us.” And he said, “Whatever you say, that will I do for you.”

⁵ Then they answered the king, “The man who consumed us, and who imagined evil against us, so that we have been destroyed from remaining in any territory of Israel,

⁶ “let seven men of his sons be delivered to us. And we will hang them up to the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, the LORD’s chosen.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

⁷ But the king had compassion on 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 bore to Saul (Armoni and Mephibosheth) and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite.

⁹ And he delivered them to the hands of the Gibeonites, who hanged them on the mountain, before the LORD. So they died, seven altogether. And they were killed in the time of harvest, in the first days, and in the beginning of barley harvest.

¹⁰ Then Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and hung it up for herself upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them from the sky, and allowed neither the birds of the air to light on them by day nor beasts of the field by night.

¹¹ And it was told to David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, 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 citizens of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan where the Philistines had hanged them when the Philistines had killed Saul in Gilboa.

¹³ So he brought the bones of Saul there, and the bones of Jonathan, his son. And they gathered the bones of those who were hanged.

¹⁴ And they buried the bones of Saul and of Jonathan, his son, in the country of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the grave of Kish, his father. And when they had performed all that the king had commanded, God was then appeased with the land.

³ We ought to thank God always for you, brothers (as is fitting), because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you toward each other abounds.

⁴ So that we ourselves rejoice over you in the churches of God because of your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you suffer.

⁵ (a sign of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you also suffer).

⁶ For it is a righteous thing with God to repay those who trouble you with tribulation.

⁷ And to you who are troubled: rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall show Himself from Heaven with His mighty angels

⁸ in flaming fire, rendering vengeance on those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ;

⁹ who shall be punished with everlasting perdition from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power

¹⁰ when He shall, on that Day, come to be glorified in His saints and made marvelous in all those who believe, because our testimony toward you was believed.

¹¹ Therefore, we pray always for you that our God may make you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith, with power;

¹² so that the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.