Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

5 Hear my words, O LORD. Understand my meditation.

² Hear the voice of my cry, my King and my God. For to you I pray.

³ Hear my voice in the morning, O LORD. In the morning I will direct myself to You, and I will wait.

⁴ For You are not a God Who loves wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You.

⁵ The foolish shall not stand in Your sight. You hate all those who work iniquity.

⁶ You shall destroy those who speak lies. The LORD will abhor the bloody man, and deceitful.

⁷ But I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy. In Your fear I will worship toward Your Holy Temple.

⁸ Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness, because of my enemies. Make Your way plain before my face.

⁹ For no constancy is in their mouth. Inside they are very corruption. Their throat is an open sepulcher. They flatter with their tongue.

¹⁰ Destroy them, O God. Let them fall from their counsels. Cast them out for the multitude of their iniquities, because they have rebelled against You.

¹¹ And let all those who trust in You rejoice, and triumph forever. And cover them. And let those who love Your Name rejoice in You.

¹² For You, LORD, will bless the righteous. You will surround him with favor, as with a shield. To him who excels on Neginoth, upon the eight tune: A Psalm of David.

¹⁸ “Nevertheless, in those days,” says the LORD, “I will not make a full end of you.

¹⁹ “And when they shall say, ‘Why does the LORD our God do these things to us?’ Then You shall answer them, “Just as you have forsaken Me and served strange gods in your land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

²⁰ “Declare this in the House of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,

²¹ ‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding, which has eyes and does not see, which has ears and does not hear.

²² ‘Do you not fear Me,’ says the LORD? ‘Or will you not be afraid in My presence? Who has placed the sand for the bounds of the sea by the perpetual decree, so that it cannot pass it? And though its waves rage, they still cannot prevail? Though they roar, they cannot pass over it?

²³ “But this people has an unfaithful and rebellious heart. They have departed and gone.

²⁴ “For they do not say in their heart, ‘Let us now fear the LORD our God, Who gives rain both early and late in due season, Who reserves for us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’

²⁵ “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have hindered good things from you.

²⁶ “For among My people are found wicked persons, who lay in wait, as he who sets snares. They have made a pit to catch men.

²⁷ “As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit, by which they have become great and grown rich.

²⁸ “They have grown fat and smooth. They surpass the deeds of the wicked. They execute no judgment, no not the judgment of the fatherless. Yet they prosper, though they execute no judgment for the poor.

²⁹ “Shall I not reckon for these things,” says the LORD? “Or shall not My Soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

³⁰ “A horrible and filthy thing has been committed in the land.

³¹ “The prophets prophesy lies, and the priests receive gifts in their hands, and My people delight in them. But what will you do when it ends?

¹³ For this reason also, we thank God unceasingly that when you received the Word of God (which you heard from us) you did not receive it as the word of man, but as it really is - the Word of God - which also works in you who believe.

¹⁴ For brothers, you have become followers of the churches of God (which in Judea are in Christ Jesus) because you have also suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they have from the Judeans,

¹⁵ who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and have driven us out. And they do not please God and are contrary to all mankind

¹⁶ and forbid us to preach to the Gentiles (so that they might be saved), always fulfilling their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.

¹⁷ But since, brothers, we were kept from you for a season (as far as sight, but not in the heart), we were eager to see your face with great desire.

¹⁸ Therefore, we would have come to you (I Paul, at least once or twice) but Satan hindered us.

¹⁹ For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?

²⁰ Yes! You are our glory and joy!