Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
43 Judge me, O God, And plead my cause against a nation not pious, From a man of deceit and perverseness Thou dost deliver me,
2 For thou [art] the God of my strength. Why hast Thou cast me off? Why mourning do I go up and down, In the oppression of an enemy?
3 Send forth Thy light and Thy truth, They -- they lead me, they bring me in, Unto Thy holy hill, and unto Thy tabernacles.
4 And I go in unto the altar of God, Unto God, the joy of my rejoicing. And I thank Thee with a harp, O God, my God.
5 What! bowest thou thyself, O my soul? And what! art thou troubled within me? Wait for God, for still I confess Him, The salvation of my countenance, and my God!
27 And there cometh a man of God unto Eli, and saith unto him, `Thus said Jehovah, Was I really revealed unto the house of thy father in their being in Egypt, before Pharaoh's house,
28 even to choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to Me for a priest, to go up on Mine altar, to make a perfume, to bear an ephod before Me, and I give to the house of thy father all the fire-offerings of the sons of Israel?
29 Why do ye kick at My sacrifice, and at Mine offering which I commanded [in] My habitation, and dost honour thy sons above Me, to make yourselves fat from the first part of every offering of Israel, of My people?
30 `Therefore -- the affirmation of Jehovah, God of Israel -- I certainly said, Thy house and the house of thy father, do walk up and down before Me to the age; and now -- the affirmation of Jehovah -- Far be it from Me! for he who is honouring Me, I honour, and those despising Me, are lightly esteemed.
31 `Lo, days [are] coming, and I have cut off thine arm, and the arm of the house of thy father, that an old man is not in thy house;
32 and thou hast beheld an adversary [in My] habitation, in all that He doth good with Israel, and there is not an old man in thy house all the days.
33 `And the man I cut not off of thine from Mine altar, [is] to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy soul; and all the increase of thy house do die men;
34 and this [is] to thee the sign that cometh unto thy two sons, unto Hophni and Phinehas -- in one day they die both of them;
35 and I have raised up for Me a stedfast priest; as in My heart and in My soul he doth do; and I have built for him a stedfast house, and he hath walked up and down before Mine anointed all the days;
36 and it hath been, every one who is left in thy house doth come in to bow himself to him, for a wage of silver, and a cake of bread, and hath said, Admit me, I pray thee, unto one of the priest's offices, to eat a morsel of bread.'
17 Lo, thou art named a Jew, and dost rest upon the law, and dost boast in God,
18 and dost know the will, and dost approve the distinctions, being instructed out of the law,
19 and hast confidence that thou thyself art a leader of blind ones, a light of those in darkness,
20 an instructor of foolish ones, a teacher of babes, having the form of the knowledge and of the truth in the law.
21 Thou, then, who art teaching another, thyself dost thou not teach?
22 thou who art preaching not to steal, dost thou steal? thou who art saying not to commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou who art abhorring the idols, dost thou rob temples?
23 thou who in the law dost boast, through the transgression of the law God dost thou dishonour?
24 for the name of God because of you is evil spoken of among the nations, according as it hath been written.
25 For circumcision, indeed, doth profit, if law thou mayest practise, but if a transgressor of law thou mayest be, thy circumcision hath become uncircumcision.
26 If, therefore the uncircumcision the righteousness of the law may keep, shall not his uncircumcision for circumcision be reckoned?
27 and the uncircumcision, by nature, fulfilling the law, shall judge thee who, through letter and circumcision, [art] a transgressor of law.
28 For he is not a Jew who is [so] outwardly, neither [is] circumcision that which is outward in flesh;
29 but a Jew [is] he who is [so] inwardly, and circumcision [is] of the heart, in spirit, not in letter, of which the praise is not of men, but of God.