Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Song of Praise

145 I will praise You, my God and King. I will honor Your name forever and ever. ² I will honor You every day, and praise Your name forever and ever. ³ The Lord is great and our praise to Him should be great. He is too great for anyone to understand. ⁴ Families of this time will praise Your works to the families-to-come. They will tell about Your powerful acts. ⁵ I will think about the shining-greatness of Your power and about Your great works. ⁶ Men will speak of Your powerful acts that fill us with fear. And I will tell of Your greatness. ⁷ Many words will come from their mouths about how good You are. They will sing for joy about how right You are.

⁸ The Lord is full of loving-favor and pity, slow to anger and great in loving-kindness.

³ The battle-coverings of his strong men are red. His men of war are dressed in red. The war-wagons shine like fire when they are made ready. The cypress spears are waved. ⁴ The war-wagons race in the streets. They rush through the city. They look like fire and move like lightning. ⁵ The leaders are called. They lose their step as they go, and hurry to the wall. The battle-covering is set up. ⁶ The river gates are opened, and the king’s house falls down. ⁷ The city is laid waste and the people are carried away. Her women servants are crying like doves, beating on their breasts.

⁸ Nineveh is like a pool, where water runs away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry. But no one turns back. ⁹ Take the silver! Take the gold! For there is no end of the riches, every kind of thing of great worth. ¹⁰ Everything has been taken from her! Yes, she is an empty waste! Hearts are melting in fear and knees are knocking! All bodies suffer, and all their faces turn white! ¹¹ Where is the home of the lions, the place where they feed their young, where the male and female and young lions went, with nothing to be afraid of? ¹² The lion killed enough for his young, and for his female lions. He filled his home with food, with torn flesh. ¹³ “I am against you,” says the Lord of All. “I will burn up your war-wagons in smoke. A sword will destroy your young lions. I will cut off your food from the land. And the voice of your men who came with news will never be heard again.”

⁵ Put yourselves through a test. See if you belong to Christ. Then you will know you belong to Christ, unless you do not pass the test. ⁶ I trust you see that we belong to Him and have passed the test. ⁷ We pray to God that you do no wrong. We do not pray this to show that our teaching is so great, but that you will keep on doing what is right, even if it looks as if we have done much wrong. ⁸ We cannot work against the truth of God. We only work for it. ⁹ We are glad when we are weak and you are strong. We pray that you will become strong Christians. ¹⁰ This is why I am writing these things while I am away from you. Then when I get there, I will not have to use strong words or punish you to show you that the Lord gives me this power. This power is to be used to make you stronger Christians, not to make you weak by hurting your faith.