Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

63 O God, you are my God;
I will seek you diligently.
My soul thirsts for you; my flesh longs for you
as in a dry and weary land without water.
² Thus I have seen you in the sanctuary,
beholding your strength and glory.
³ Because your loyal love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
⁴ So I will bless you while I live.
I will lift up my hands^[b] in your name.
⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with the best and richest food,
and with joyful lips my mouth will praise.
⁶ When I remember you on my bed,
I meditate on you in the night watches.
⁷ Because you have been my help,
therefore^[c] in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
⁸ My soul clings to^[d] you;
your right hand upholds me.
⁹ But as for them who seek my life for ruin,
they will go into the depths of the earth.
¹⁰ They who would deliver him to the sword^[e]
will become a portion for jackals.
¹¹ However, the king will rejoice in God.
Everyone who swears an oath by him will boast,
because the mouth of the liars will be stopped.

² Hear this, O elders,
    and give ear, all the inhabitants of the land.
Has this happened in your days?
    Or the days of your ancestors?
³ Tell it to your children,
    and your children to their children,
        and their children to the following generation.
⁴ What the cutting locust left,
    the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
    the hopping locust has eaten.
And what the hopping locust left,
    the destroying locust has eaten.
⁵ Wake up, drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all drinkers of wine, over the new wine,
    for it is cut off from your mouth.
⁶ Because a nation has invaded^[a] my land,
    strong and beyond counting.^[b]
Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
    and its fangs are those of a lioness.
⁷ It has made my vine a desolation,
    and my fig tree a completely splintered stump.
It has stripped them bare and thrown them down;
    their branches have turned white.
⁸ Lament like a virgin girded in sackcloth
    for the husband of her youth.
⁹ The offering and libation are withheld
    from the house^[c] of Yahweh.
The priests mourn,
    the ministers of Yahweh.
¹⁰ The field is destroyed;
    the earth mourns
because the grain is destroyed,
    the new wine dries up,
        the olive oil languishes.
¹¹ Be ashamed, farmers;
    Wail, vinedressers,
over the wheat and over the barley,
    because the harvest of the field is ruined.
¹² The vine withers
    and the fig tree droops.
The pomegranate tree, and also the palm tree, the apple tree
    —all the trees of the field—are dried up.
Indeed, joy is dried up
    among the sons of men.
¹³ Gird yourselves and lament, O priests!
    Wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come spend the night in sackcloth,
    O ministers of my God,
because offering and libation
    are withheld from the house of your God.
¹⁴ Solemnize a fast!
    Call an assembly!
Gather the elders,
    all of the inhabitants of the land
in the house of Yahweh your God,
    and cry out to Yahweh.