Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
6 God, your throne will last forever and ever.
You will rule your kingdom with fairness.
7 You love right and hate evil,
so God has chosen you from among your friends;
he has set you apart with much joy.
8 Your clothes smell like myrrh, aloes, and cassia.
From palaces of ivory
music comes to make you happy.
9 Kings’ daughters are among your honored women.
Your bride stands at your right side
wearing gold from Ophir.
10 Listen to me, daughter; look and pay attention.
Forget your people and your father’s family.
11 The king loves your beauty.
Because he is your master, you should obey him.
12 People from the city of Tyre have brought a gift.
Wealthy people will want to meet you.
13 The princess is very beautiful.
Her gown is woven with gold.
14 In her beautiful clothes she is brought to the king.
Her bridesmaids follow behind her,
and they are also brought to him.
15 They come with happiness and joy;
they enter the king’s palace.
16 You will have sons to replace your fathers.
You will make them rulers through all the land.
17 I will make your name famous from now on,
so people will praise you forever and ever.
Hosea Buys a Wife
3 The Lord said to me again, “Go, show your love to a woman loved by someone else, who has been unfaithful to you. In the same way the Lord loves the people of Israel, even though they worship other gods and love to eat the raisin cakes.”[a]
2 So I bought her for six ounces of silver and ten bushels of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You must wait for me for many days. You must not be a prostitute, and you must not have sexual relations with any other man. I will act the same way toward you.”
4 In the same way Israel will live many days without a king or leader, without sacrifices or holy stone pillars, and without the holy vest or an idol. 5 After this, the people of Israel will return to the Lord their God and follow him and the king from David’s family. In the last days they will turn in fear to the Lord, and he will bless them.
23 I tell you this, and I ask God to be my witness that this is true: The reason I did not come back to Corinth was to keep you from being punished or hurt. 24 We are not trying to control your faith. You are strong in faith. But we are workers with you for your own joy.
2 So I decided that my next visit to you would not be another one to make you sad. 2 If I make you sad, who will make me glad? Only you can make me glad—particularly the person whom I made sad. 3 I wrote you a letter for this reason: that when I came to you I would not be made sad by the people who should make me happy. I felt sure of all of you, that you would share my joy. 4 When I wrote to you before, I was very troubled and unhappy in my heart, and I wrote with many tears. I did not write to make you sad, but to let you know how much I love you.
Forgive the Sinner
5 Someone there among you has caused sadness, not to me, but to all of you. I mean he caused sadness to all in some way. (I do not want to make it sound worse than it really is.) 6 The punishment that most of you gave him is enough for him. 7 But now you should forgive him and comfort him to keep him from having too much sadness and giving up completely. 8 So I beg you to show that you love him. 9 I wrote you to test you and to see if you obey in everything. 10 If you forgive someone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if I had anything to forgive—I forgave it for you, as if Christ were with me. 11 I did this so that Satan would not win anything from us, because we know very well what Satan’s plans are.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.