Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Psalm of praise. Of David.

145 I will extol thee, my God, O King, and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.

² Every day will I bless thee, and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

³ Great is Jehovah, and exceedingly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.

⁴ One generation shall laud thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.

⁵ I will speak of the glorious splendour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works.

⁶ And they shall tell of the might of thy terrible acts; and thy great deeds will I declare.

⁷ They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

⁸ Jehovah is gracious and merciful; slow to anger, and of great loving-kindness.

³ The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots [glitter] with the sheen of steel, in the day of his preparation, and the spears are brandished.

⁴ The chariots rush madly in the streets, they justle one against another in the broad ways: the appearance of them is like torches, they run like lightnings.

⁵ He bethinketh him of his nobles: they stumble in their march; they make haste to the wall thereof, and the shelter is prepared.

⁶ The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace melteth away.

⁷ And it is decreed: she shall be uncovered, she shall be led away, and her maids shall moan as with the voice of doves, drumming upon their breasts.

⁸ Nineveh hath been like a pool of water, since the day she existed, yet they flee away. … Stand! Stand! But none looketh back.

⁹ Plunder the silver, plunder the gold; for there is no end of the splendid store of all precious vessels.

¹⁰ She is empty, and void, and waste; and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and writhing pain is in all loins, and all their faces grow pale.

¹¹ Where is [now] the den of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, the lioness, [and] the lion's whelp walked, and none made them afraid?

¹² The lion tore in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin.

¹³ Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts: and I will burn her chariots into smoke; and the sword shall devour thy young lions, and I will cut off thy prey from the earth; and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.

⁵ examine your own selves if ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: do ye not recognise yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed ye be reprobates?

⁶ Now I hope that ye will know that *we* are not reprobates.

⁷ But we pray to God that ye may do nothing evil; not that *we* may appear approved, but that *ye* may do what is right, and *we* be as reprobates.

⁸ For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.

⁹ For we rejoice when *we* may be weak and *ye* may be powerful. But this also we pray for, your perfecting.

¹⁰ On this account I write these things being absent, that being present I may not use severity according to the authority which the Lord has given me for building up, and not for overthrowing.