Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 144
A King’s Prayer
Of David.
1 Blessed be the Lord, my rock(A)
who trains my hands for battle
and my fingers for warfare.(B)
2 He is my faithful love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer.
He is my shield,(C) and I take refuge in him;(D)
he subdues my people[a] under me.(E)
3 Lord, what is a human that you care for him,
a son of man[b] that you think of him?(F)
4 A human is like a breath;
his days are like a passing shadow.(G)
5 Lord, part your heavens and come down.(H)
Touch the mountains, and they will smoke.(I)
6 Flash your lightning and scatter the foe;[c]
shoot your arrows and rout them.(J)
7 Reach down[d] from on high;(K)
rescue me from deep water, and set me free
from the grasp of foreigners(L)
8 whose mouths speak lies,
whose right hands are deceptive.(M)
9 God, I will sing a new song to you;
I will play on a ten-stringed harp for you(N)—
10 the one who gives victory to kings,
who frees his servant David
from the deadly sword.(O)
11 Set me free and rescue me
from foreigners(P)
whose mouths speak lies,
whose right hands are deceptive.(Q)
12 Then our sons will be like plants
nurtured in their youth,
our daughters, like corner pillars
that are carved in the palace style.(R)
13 Our storehouses will be full,
supplying all kinds of produce;(S)
our flocks will increase by thousands
and tens of thousands in our open fields.(T)
14 Our cattle will be well fed.[e]
There will be no breach in the walls,
no going into captivity,[f]
and no cry of lament in our public squares.(U)
15 Happy are the people with such blessings.
Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.(V)
Young Women
5 Who is this(A) coming up from the wilderness,
leaning on the one she loves?
Woman
I awakened you under the apricot tree.(B)
There your mother conceived you;
there she conceived and gave you birth.
6 Set me as a seal on your heart,
as a seal on your arm.(C)
For love is as strong as death;(D)
jealousy is as unrelenting as Sheol.
Love’s flames are fiery flames(E)—
an almighty flame![a]
7 A huge torrent cannot extinguish love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If a man were to give all his wealth[b] for love,(F)
it would be utterly scorned.
Brothers
8 Our sister is young;
she has no breasts.(G)
What will we do for our sister
on the day she is spoken for?
9 If she is a wall,
we will build a silver barricade on her.
If she is a door,
we will enclose her with cedar planks.(H)
Woman
11 Solomon owned a vineyard in Baal-hamon.(I)
He leased the vineyard to tenants.(J)
Each was to bring for his fruit
one thousand pieces of silver.(K)
12 I have my own vineyard.[f](L)
The one thousand are for you, Solomon,
but two hundred for those who take care of its fruits.
Man
Woman
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45 Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did believed in him.(A) 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees(B) and told them what Jesus had done.
47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin(C) and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans(D) will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 One of them, Caiaphas,(E) who was high priest(F) that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50 You’re not considering that it is to your[a] advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.”(G) 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die(H) for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children(I) of God. 53 So from that day on they plotted to kill him.(J)
54 Jesus therefore no longer walked openly(K) among the Jews but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness,(L) to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples.
55 Now the Jewish Passover(M) was near, and many went up to Jerusalem(N) from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. 56 They were looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple,(O) “What do you think? He won’t come to the festival,(P) will he?” 57 The chief priests(Q) and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it so that they could arrest him.
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