Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

1 O the happiness of that one, who Hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked. And in the way of sinners hath not stood, And in the seat of scorners hath not sat;

² But -- in the law of Jehovah [is] his delight, And in His law he doth meditate by day and by night:

³ And he hath been as a tree, Planted by rivulets of water, That giveth its fruit in its season, And its leaf doth not wither, And all that he doth he causeth to prosper.

⁴ Not so the wicked: But -- as chaff that wind driveth away!

⁵ Therefore the wicked rise not in judgment, Nor sinners in the company of the righteous,

⁶ For Jehovah is knowing the way of the righteous, And the way of the wicked is lost!

⁵ And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying,

⁶ `Speak unto the sons of Israel, Man or woman, when they do any of the sins of man, by committing a trespass against Jehovah, and that person [is] guilty,

⁷ and they have confessed their sin which they have done, then he hath restored his guilt in its principal, and its fifth is adding to it, and hath given [it] to him in reference to whom he hath been guilty.

⁸ `And if the man have no redeemer to restore the guilt to, the guilt which is restored [is] Jehovah's, the priest's, apart from the ram of the atonements, whereby he maketh atonement for him.

⁹ `And every heave-offering of all the holy things of the sons of Israel, which they bring near to the priest, becometh his;

¹⁰ and any man's hallowed things become his; that which any man giveth to the priest becometh his.'

⁵ For this cause left I thee in Crete, that the things lacking thou mayest arrange, and mayest set down in every city elders, as I did appoint to thee;

⁶ if any one is blameless, of one wife a husband, having children stedfast, not under accusation of riotous living or insubordinate --

⁷ for it behoveth the overseer to be blameless, as God's steward, not self-pleased, nor irascible, not given to wine, not a striker, not given to filthy lucre;

⁸ but a lover of strangers, a lover of good men, sober-minded, righteous, kind, self-controlled,

⁹ holding -- according to the teaching -- to the stedfast word, that he may be able also to exhort in the sound teaching, and the gainsayers to convict;

¹⁰ for there are many both insubordinate, vain-talkers, and mind-deceivers -- especially they of the circumcision --

¹¹ whose mouth it behoveth to stop, who whole households do overturn, teaching what things it behoveth not, for filthy lucre's sake.

¹² A certain one of them, a prophet of their own, said -- `Cretans! always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies!'

¹³ this testimony is true; for which cause convict them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,

¹⁴ not giving heed to Jewish fables and commands of men, turning themselves away from the truth;

¹⁵ all things, indeed, [are] pure to the pure, and to the defiled and unstedfast [is] nothing pure, but of them defiled [are] even the mind and the conscience;

¹⁶ God they profess to know, and in the works they deny [Him], being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work disapproved.