Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

David’s Psalm of praise.

Aleph

¹ ¶ I will extol thee, my God, my king, and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.

Beth

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

Gimel

³ Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

Daleth

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

He

⁵ I will speak of the beauty of the glory of thy majesty and of thy wondrous works.

Vau

⁶ And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts, and I will declare thy greatness.

Zain

⁷ They shall proclaim the memory of thy great goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness.

Cheth

⁸ The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy.

³ The shield of his valiant ones shall be red, the men of his army are in scarlet, the chariot as fire of torches in the day which shall be made ready; the fir trees shall be terribly shaken.

⁴ The chariots shall rage in the streets; they shall flow through the streets, their faces like torches; they shall run like the lightnings.

⁵ He shall remember his valiant ones; they shall stumble in their walk when they make haste to their wall, and the covering shall be prepared.

⁶ The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be destroyed.

⁷ And the queen shall be taken captive; they shall order her to go up, and her maids shall take her, mourning as with the voice of doves, beating upon their breasts.

⁸ And Nineveh was of old like a pool of water; but now they flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but no one looks back.

⁹ Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold, for there is no end of the riches; honour, more than all the desirable furniture.

¹⁰ She is empty and worn out and is in pieces, and the heart melted, the knees smite together, and much pain is in the kidneys, and the faces of them all gather blackness.

¹¹ ¶ What of the dwelling of the lions and of the feeding place of the young lions where the lion and the lioness walked and the lion’s whelps, and no one 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 robbery.

¹³ Behold, I speak unto thee, saith the LORD of the hosts, and I will burn and reduce thy chariots into smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut off thy robbery from the earth, and the voice of thy ambassadors shall never be heard again.

⁵ Examine yourselves whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves. Do ye not know your own selves if Jesus Christ is in you? Unless ye are reprobates.

⁶ But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.

⁷ ¶ Now I pray to God that ye do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is good, though we be as reprobates.

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

⁹ By which we are glad that we are weak and ye are strong, and even so we pray for your perfection.

¹⁰ Therefore I write these things being absent lest being present I should treat you with more severity, according to the power which the Lord has given me for edification, and not for destruction.