Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

²³ Praise the LORD, you who fear Him! Magnify Him, all the seed of Jacob; and fear Him, all the seed of Israel!

²⁴ For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the poor. Nor has He hidden His face from Him, but when He called to Him, He heard.

²⁵ My praise shall be of You in the great Congregation. I will perform My vows before those who fear Him.

²⁶ The poor shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek after the LORD shall praise Him. Your heart shall live forever.

²⁷ All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before You.

²⁸ For the Kingdom is the LORD’s; and He rules among the nations.

²⁹ All those who are fat on the Earth shall eat and worship. All those who go down into the dust shall bow before Him, even him who cannot quicken his own soul.

³⁰ Their seed shall serve Him. It shall be counted to the LORD for a generation.

³¹ They shall come and shall declare His righteousness to a people who shall be born, because He has done it. A Psalm of David.

16 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. And she had a maid—an Egyptian—Hagar by name.

² And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has restrained me from childbearing. I urge you to go in to my maid. It may be that I shall receive a child by her.” And Abram obeyed the voice of Sarai.

³ Then Sarai, Abram’s wife (after Abram had dwelled ten years in the land of Canaan) took Hagar, her maid (the Egyptian) and gave her to her husband, Abram, for his wife.

⁴ And he went in to Hagar; and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she despised her mistress in her eyes.

⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “You do me wrong. I have given my maid into your bosom; and she sees that she has conceived, and I am despised in her eyes. The LORD judge between you and me.”

⁶ Then Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your hand. Do with her as it pleases you.” Then Sarai dealt roughly with her. Therefore, she fled from her.

4 What, then, shall we say that Abraham, our Father, has found according to the flesh?

² For if Abraham were justified by works, he has grounds to boast. But not with God.

³ For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”

⁴ Now, to one who works, the wages are not counted by grace, but by debt.

⁵ But to one who does not work, but believes in Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness;

⁶ even as David declares the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying,

⁷ “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

⁸ “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.”

⁹ Did, then, this blessedness come upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham for righteousness.

¹⁰ How, then, was it counted - when he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not when he was circumcised, but when he was uncircumcised.

¹¹ Afterward, he received the sign of circumcision, as the seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had when he was uncircumcised. So that he should be the Father of all those who believe (not being circumcised), that righteousness might be counted to them also;

¹² and that he be the Father of circumcision, not only to those who are of the circumcision, but also to those who walk in the steps of the faith our Father Abraham had when he was uncircumcised.