Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁶ Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.

⁷ You love righteousness, uprightness, and right standing with God and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.^(A)

⁸ Your garments are all fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia; stringed instruments make You glad.

⁹ Kings’ daughters are among Your honorable women; at Your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.

¹⁰ Hear, O daughter, consider, submit, and consent to my instruction: forget also your own people and your father’s house;

¹¹ So will the King desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, be submissive and reverence and honor Him.

¹² And, O daughter of Tyre, the richest of the people shall entreat your favor with a gift.

¹³ The King’s daughter in the inner part [of the palace] is all glorious; her clothing is inwrought with gold.^(B)

¹⁴ She shall be brought to the King in raiment of needlework; with the virgins, her companions that follow her, she shall be brought to You.

¹⁵ With gladness and rejoicing will they be brought; they will enter into the King’s palace.

¹⁶ Instead of Your fathers shall be Your sons, whom You will make princes in all the land.

¹⁷ I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore shall the people praise and give You thanks forever and ever.

14 O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled and fallen, [visited by calamity] due to your iniquity.

² Take with you words and return to the Lord. Say to Him, Take away all our iniquity; accept what is good and receive us graciously; so will we render [our thanks] as bullocks [to be sacrificed] and pay the confession of our lips.^(A)

³ Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands [idols], You are our gods. For in You [O Lord] the fatherless find love, pity, and mercy.

⁴ I will heal their faithlessness; I will love them freely, for My anger is turned away from [Israel].

⁵ I will be like the dew and the night mist to Israel; he shall grow and blossom like the lily and cast forth his roots like [the sturdy evergreens of] Lebanon.

⁶ His suckers and shoots shall spread, and his beauty shall be like the olive tree and his fragrance like [the cedars and aromatic shrubs of] Lebanon.

⁷ They that dwell under his shade shall return; they shall revive like the grain and blossom like the vine; the scent of it shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

⁸ Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have answered [him] and will regard and watch over him; I am like a green fir or cypress tree; with Me is the fruit found [which is to nourish you].

⁹ Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of the Lord are right and the [uncompromisingly] just shall walk in them, but transgressors shall stumble and fall in them.^(B)

11 I wish you would bear with me while I indulge in a little [so-called] foolishness. Do bear with me!

² For I am ^[a]zealous for you with a godly eagerness and a divine jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one Husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.^(A)

³ But [now] I am fearful, lest that even as the serpent beguiled Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted and seduced from wholehearted and sincere and pure devotion to Christ.^(B)

⁴ For [you seem readily to endure it] if a man comes and preaches another Jesus than the One we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the [Spirit] you [once] received or a different gospel from the one you [then] received and welcomed; you tolerate [all that] well enough!

⁵ Yet I consider myself as in no way inferior to these [precious] ^[b]extra-super [false] apostles.

⁶ But even if [I am] unskilled in speaking, yet [I am] not [unskilled] in knowledge [I know what I am talking about]; we have made this evident to you in all things.

⁷ But did I perhaps make a mistake and do you a wrong in debasing and cheapening myself so that you might be exalted and enriched in dignity and honor and happiness by preaching God’s Gospel without expense to you?

⁸ Other churches I have robbed by accepting [more than their share of] support for my ministry [from them in order] to serve you.

⁹ And when I was with you and ran short financially, I did not burden any [of you], for what I lacked was abundantly made up by the brethren who came from Macedonia. So I kept myself from being burdensome to you in any way, and will continue to keep [myself from being so].

¹⁰ As the truth of Christ is in me, this my boast [of independence] shall not be debarred (silenced or checked) in the regions of Achaia (most of Greece).

¹¹ And why? Because I do not love you [do not have a preference for you, wish you well, and regard your welfare]? God perceives and knows that I do!

¹² But what I do, I will continue to do, [for I am determined to maintain this independence] in order to cut off the claim of those who would like [to find an occasion and incentive] to claim that in their boasted [mission] they work on the same terms that we do.

¹³ For such men are false apostles [spurious, counterfeits], deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles (special messengers) of Christ (the Messiah).

¹⁴ And it is no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light;

¹⁵ So it is not surprising if his servants also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. [But] their end will correspond with their deeds.