Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer of David.

17 Hear the right, O Jehovah, attend unto my cry; give ear unto my prayer, which is not out of feigned lips.

² Let my judgment come forth from thy presence, let thine eyes regard equity.

³ Thou hast proved my heart, thou hast visited me by night; thou hast tried me, thou hast found nothing: my thought goeth not beyond my word.

⁴ Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept from the paths of the violent [man].

⁵ When thou holdest my goings in thy paths, my footsteps slip not.

⁶ I have called upon thee, for thou answerest me, O God. Incline thine ear unto me, hear my speech.

⁷ Shew wondrously thy loving-kindnesses, O thou that savest by thy right hand them that trust [in thee] from those that rise up [against them].

⁸ Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,

⁹ From the wicked that destroy me, my deadly enemies, who compass me about.

¹⁰ They are enclosed in their own fat; with their mouth they speak proudly.

¹¹ They have now encompassed us in our steps; their eyes have they set, bowing down to the earth.

¹² He is like a lion that is greedy of its prey, and as a young lion lurking in secret places.

¹³ Arise, Jehovah, anticipate him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, thy sword;

¹⁴ From men [who are] thy hand, O Jehovah, from men of this age: their portion is in [this] life, and their belly thou fillest with thy hid [treasure]; they have their fill of sons, and leave the rest of their [substance] to their children.

¹⁵ As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

²⁷ And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of Jehovah.

12 And Jehovah sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.

² The rich had very many flocks and herds;

³ but the poor man had nothing at all, but one little ewe lamb which he had bought, and was nourishing; and it grew up with him, and together with his children: it ate of his morsel, and drank of his own cup, and slept in his bosom, and was to him as a daughter.

⁴ And there came a traveller to the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that had come to him; and he took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that had come to him.

⁵ Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As Jehovah liveth, the man that hath done this thing is worthy of death;

⁶ and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.

⁷ And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man! Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;

⁸ and I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if [that] had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.

⁹ Wherefore hast thou despised the word of Jehovah to do evil in his sight? thou hast smitten Urijah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

¹⁰ Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Urijah the Hittite to be thy wife.

¹¹ Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

¹² For thou didst [it] secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.

¹³ And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against Jehovah. And Nathan said to David, Jehovah has also put away thy sin: thou shalt not die.

¹⁴ Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme, even the child that is born to thee shall certainly die.

¹⁵ And Nathan departed to his house. And Jehovah smote the child that Urijah's wife bore to David, and it became very sick.

⁷ And to the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia write: These things saith the holy, the true; he that has the key of David, he who opens and no one shall shut, and shuts and no one shall open:

⁸ I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an opened door, which no one can shut, because thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

⁹ Behold, I make them of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews, and are not, but lie; behold, I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet, and shall know that *I* have loved thee.

¹⁰ Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, *I* also will keep thee out of the hour of trial, which is about to come upon the whole habitable world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.

¹¹ I come quickly: hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown.

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

¹³ He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.