Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹ ¶ Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against those who are not merciful; O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.

² For thou art the God of my strength; why dost thou cast me off? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

³ O send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me; let them bring me unto the mountain of thy holiness and to thy tabernacles.

⁴ Then I will enter in to the altar of God, unto the God of my exceeding joy; yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God.

⁵ Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Wait for God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the saving health of my countenance and my God.

²⁷ ¶ And a man of God came unto Eli and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Did I not plainly appear unto the house of thy father when they were in Egypt in the house of Pharaoh?

²⁸ And I chose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me, and I gave unto the house of thy father all the offerings on fire of the sons of Israel.

²⁹ Why do ye trample my sacrifices and my offerings which I have commanded to be offered in my tabernacle and honor thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?

³⁰ Therefore, the LORD God of Israel said, I had said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me for ever, but now the LORD said, It shall never be; for those that honor me I will honor, and those that lightly esteem me shall be vile.

³¹ Behold, the 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 a competitor in my tabernacle in all the things in which I shall do good unto Israel, and there shall not be an old man in thy house for ever.

³³ I shall not totally cut off all thy men from my altar to consume thine eyes and to grieve thy soul, and all the increase of thy house shall die as young men.

³⁴ And this shall be a sign unto thee that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die.

³⁵ And I will raise me up a faithful priest that shall do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind, and I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before my anointed {Heb. Messiah} for ever.

³⁶ And it shall come to pass that every one that is left in thy house shall come and crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into some aspect of the priesthood that I may eat a piece of bread.

¹⁷ ¶ Behold, thou doth call thyself a Jew and art supported by the law and doth glory in God

¹⁸ and dost know his will and approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law,

¹⁹ and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of those who are in darkness,

²⁰ an instructor of the ignorant, a teacher of children, who hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.

²¹ Thou, therefore, who teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?

²² Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that dost abhor idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?

²³ Thou that makest thy boast of the law, with rebellion to the law doth thou dishonour God?

²⁴ For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

²⁵ For circumcision verily profits if thou keep the law, but if thou art a rebel to the law, thy circumcision is made into a foreskin.

²⁶ Therefore if the uncircumcised keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his foreskin be counted for circumcision?

²⁷ And that which is by nature foreskin, but keeps the law perfectly, shall judge thee who with the letter and with the circumcision art rebellious to the law.

²⁸ For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is done outwardly in the flesh;

²⁹ but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.