Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

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

63 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh languisheth for thee, in a dry and weary land without water:

² To see thy power and thy glory, as I have beheld thee in the sanctuary;

³ For thy loving-kindness is better than life: my lips shall praise thee.

⁴ So will I bless thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in thy name.

⁵ My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise [thee] with joyful lips.

⁶ When I remember thee upon my bed, I meditate on thee in the night-watches:

⁷ For thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings will I sing for joy.

⁸ My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

⁹ But those that seek my soul, to destroy [it], shall go into the lower parts of the earth;

¹⁰ They shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be the portion of foxes.

¹¹ But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: for the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.

1 The word of Jehovah that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

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

³ Tell your children of it, and [let] your children [tell] their children, and their children another generation:

⁴ that which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar 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 nation is come up upon my land, strong and without number: his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a lioness.

⁷ He hath made my vine a desolation, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away: its branches are made white.

⁸ Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

⁹ The oblation and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah's ministers, mourn.

¹⁰ The field is laid waste, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth.

¹¹ Be ashamed, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley: because the harvest of the field hath perished.

¹² The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm also and the apple-tree; all the trees of the field are withered, yea, joy is withered away from the children of men.

¹³ Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests; howl, ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the oblation and the drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Hallow a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, gather the elders, [and] all the inhabitants of the land to the house of Jehovah your God, and cry unto Jehovah.

⁶ But Timotheus having just come to us from you, and brought to us the glad tidings of your faith and love, and that ye have always good remembrance of us, desiring much to see us, even as we also you;

⁷ for this reason we have been comforted in you, brethren, in all our distress and tribulation, through your faith,

⁸ because now we live if *ye* stand firm in [the] Lord.

⁹ For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy wherewith we rejoice on account of you before our God,

¹⁰ night and day beseeching exceedingly to the end that we may see your face, and perfect what is lacking in your faith?

¹¹ But our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you.

¹² But you, may the Lord make to exceed and abound in love toward one another, and toward all, even as we also towards you,

¹³ in order to the confirming of your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.