Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

43 Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; deliver me from the deceitful and unrighteous man.

² For thou art the God of my strength: why hast thou cast me off? why go I about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

³ Send out thy light and thy truth: *they* shall lead me, *they* shall bring me to thy holy mount, and unto thy habitations.

⁴ Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto the God of the gladness of my joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God.

⁵ Why art thou cast down, my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, [who is] the health of my countenance, and my God.

²⁷ And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him, Thus saith Jehovah: Did I plainly reveal myself to the house of thy father when they were in Egypt, in Pharaoh's house,

²⁸ and choose him out of all the tribes of Israel, to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear the ephod before me? and I gave unto the house of thy father all the offerings by fire of the children of Israel.

²⁹ Wherefore do ye trample upon my sacrifice and upon mine oblation which I have commanded [in my] habitation? And thou honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the primest of all the oblations of Israel my people.

³⁰ Wherefore Jehovah the God of Israel saith, I said indeed, Thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever. But now Jehovah saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

³¹ Behold, days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thy house.

³² And thou shalt see an oppressor [in my] habitation, amidst all the good that shall be done to Israel; and there shall not be an old man in thy house for ever.

³³ And the man of thine [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to cause thine eyes to fail and to grieve thy soul; and all the increase of thy house shall die in their vigour.

³⁴ And this shall be the sign to thee, which shall come upon thy two sons, upon Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall die, both of them.

³⁵ And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, [who] shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind; and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed continually.

³⁶ And it shall come to pass [that] every one that is left of thy house shall come to crouch to him for a small piece of silver and for a cake of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priestly offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.

¹⁷ But if *thou* art named a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast in God,

¹⁸ and knowest the will, and discerningly approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law;

¹⁹ and hast confidence that thou thyself art a leader of the blind, a light of those who [are] in darkness,

²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law:

²¹ thou then that teachest another, dost thou not teach thyself? thou that preachest not to steal, dost thou steal?

²² thou that sayest [man should] not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?

²³ thou who boastest in law, dost thou by transgression of the law dishonour God?

²⁴ For the name of God is blasphemed on your account among the nations, according as it is written.

²⁵ For circumcision indeed profits if thou keep [the] law; but if thou be a law-transgressor, thy circumcision is become uncircumcision.

²⁶ If therefore the uncircumcision keep the requirements of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision,

²⁷ and uncircumcision by nature, fulfilling the law, judge thee, who, with letter and circumcision, [art] a law-transgressor?

²⁸ For he is not a Jew who [is] one outwardly, neither that circumcision which is outward in flesh;

²⁹ but he [is] a Jew [who is so] inwardly; and circumcision, of the heart, in spirit, not in letter; whose praise [is] not of men, but of God.