Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

¹ ¶ O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee; my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh longs for thee in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water;

² in this manner I beheld thee in holiness when I beheld thy power and thy glory.

³ ¶ Because thy mercy is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.

⁴ Thus will I bless thee in my life; in thy name shall I lift up my hands.

⁵ My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips

⁶ When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches.

⁷ ¶ Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

⁸ My soul has followed hard after thee; thy right hand has upheld me.

⁹ But those that sought my soul, to destroy it, descended into the lower parts of the earth.

¹⁰ They shall be slain by the sword; they shall be a portion for foxes.

¹¹ But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that swears by him shall be praised; for the mouth of those that speak lies shall be stopped.

1 ¶ The word of the LORD that went to Joel the son of Pethuel.

² Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the earth. Has this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

³ Tell your sons of it, and let your sons tell their sons, and their sons another generation.

⁴ That which the palmerworm has left the locust has eaten; and that which the locust has left the cankerworm has eaten; and that which the cankerworm has left the caterpillar has eaten.

⁵ Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.

⁶ For a people has come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the molars of a great lion.

⁷ He has laid my vine waste and barked my fig tree: he has made it clean bare and cast it away; its branches are made white.

⁸ ¶ Lament like a young woman girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

⁹ The grain offering and the drink offering of the house of the LORD has perished; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn.

¹⁰ The field was destroyed, the land mourns; for the wheat was destroyed; the new wine was dried up, the oil perished.

¹¹ Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is lost.

¹² The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has perished; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, have withered: therefore joy has withered away from the sons of men.

¹³ Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the present and the drink offering is taken away from the house of your God.

¹⁴ ¶ Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the earth into the house of the LORD your God and cry unto the LORD.

⁶ ¶ But now when Timothy came from you unto us and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you.

⁷ Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our tribulation and need by your faith;

⁸ for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.

⁹ For what thanks can we render to God again for you for all the joy with which we joy for your sakes before our God,

¹⁰ night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face and might complete that which is lacking in your faith?

¹¹ ¶ Now may God himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you.

¹² And the Lord make you to multiply and make charity to abound among you and toward all men, even as it is with us toward you,

¹³ that your hearts may be confirmed in holiness, irreprehensible before God, even our Father, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.