Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

HE.

³³ ¶ Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end.

³⁴ Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

³⁵ ¶ Make me to go in the path of thy commandments, for therein do I delight.

³⁶ Incline my heart unto thy testimonies and not to covetousness.

³⁷ ¶ Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity, and cause me to live in thy way.

³⁸ ¶ Confirm thy word unto thy slave, who is devoted to thy fear.

³⁹ ¶ Turn away my reproach which I have feared, for thy judgments are good.

⁴⁰ ¶ Behold, I have longed after thy precepts; cause me to live in thy righteousness.

24 ¶ Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

² Son of man, write the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon laid siege against Jerusalem this same day.

³ And speak unto the house of rebellion by parable and say unto them, Thus hath the Lord GOD said; Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it:

⁴ gather her pieces of meat into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones.

⁵ Take the choice of the flock and burn also the bones under it and make it boil well and let them seethe the bones of it therein.

⁶ For thus hath the Lord GOD said: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein and whose scum is not gone out of it! For her pieces, because of her pieces let it be removed; let no lot fall upon it.

⁷ For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she did not poured it upon the ground, to cover it with dust;

⁸ that wrath might rise up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the high place of the rock that it should not be covered.

⁹ Therefore thus hath the Lord GOD said: Woe to the bloody city! I will also make a great fire,

¹⁰ multiplying the wood, kindling the fire, to consume the flesh and to make the broth, and the bones shall be burned;

¹¹ setting afterward the empty pot upon the coals thereof that it may become red hot and may burn and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed.

¹² In fraud she has become weary, and her great scum did not go forth out of her; her scum shall be in the fire.

¹³ In thy perverse filthiness thou shalt die because I have cleansed thee, and thou didst not cleanse thyself from thy uncleanness; thou shalt never cleanse thyself again, until I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.

¹⁴ I, the LORD, have spoken: I came and worked. I will not turn back, neither will I have mercy, neither will I repent; according to thy ways and according to thy doings, they shall judge thee, said the Lord GOD.

¹¹ ¶ I have been a fool, glorying; ye have compelled me; for I ought to have been commended of you, for in nothing am I behind the grandiose apostles, though I am nothing.

¹² Truly the signs of the apostle were worked out among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and power.

¹³ For what is it in which ye were inferior to the other congregations {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} except in that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.

¹⁴ Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not your things, but you; for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.

¹⁵ And I will very gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

¹⁶ But be it so, I did not burden you; nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.

¹⁷ Did I make a gain of you by any of those whom I sent unto you?

¹⁸ I besought Titus and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus defraud you? Did we not walk in the same Spirit and in the same steps?

¹⁹ Again, do ye think that we excuse ourselves unto you? We speak before God in Christ, but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying.

²⁰ For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I desire and that I shall be found unto you such as ye desire not, lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, rumours, tumults,

²¹ lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and I would have to mourn over many who have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.