Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁶ Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of Your Kingdom is a scepter of righteousness.

⁷ You love righteousness and hate wickedness, because God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.

⁸ All Your garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia, of the ivory palaces where they have made You glad.

⁹ King’s daughters were among Your honorable women. Upon Your right hand stood the queen in a vesture of gold of Ophir.

¹⁰ Hear, O daughter, and consider and incline your ear. Also, forget your own people and your father’s house.

¹¹ So shall the King have pleasure in your beauty; for He is your LORD. And reverence Him.

¹² And the daughter of Tyre, with the rich of the people, shall do homage before your face with presents.

¹³ The King’s daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is of embroidered gold.

¹⁴ She shall be brought to the King in clothing of needlework. The virgins who follow after her (her companions) shall be brought to You.

¹⁵ With joy and gladness they shall be brought and shall enter into the King’s palace.

¹⁶ Your children shall be in place of your fathers. You shall make them princes through all the Earth.

¹⁷ I will make Your Name remembered through all generations. Therefore, the people shall give thanks to You. World without end. To him who excels upon Alamoth: a song committed to the sons of Korah.

14 Samaria shall be desolate. For she has rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword. Their infants shall be dashed in pieces. And their women with child shall be ripped open.

² O Israel, return to the LORD your God! For you have fallen by your iniquity!

³ Take words with you and turn to the LORD, and say to Him, “Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously. So will we render the calves of our lips.

⁴ “Assyria shall not save us. Nor will we ride upon horses. Nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods.’ For in You the fatherless finds mercy.”

⁵ “I will heal their rebellion. I will love them freely. For My anger has turned away from him.

⁶ “I will be as the dew to Israel. He shall grow as the lily and fasten his roots as the trees of Lebanon.

⁷ “His branches shall spread. And his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon.

⁸ “Those who dwell under his shadow shall return. They shall revive as grain and flourish as the vine. Their scent shall be as the wine of Lebanon.

⁹ “Ephraim shall say, ‘What have I to do anymore with idols?’ I shall hear him and look upon him. I am like a green fir tree. Upon Me your fruit is found.

¹⁰ “Who is wise and shall understand these things, prudent and shall know them? For the ways of the LORD are righteous and the just shall walk in them. But the wicked shall fall therein.”

11 I wish you could suffer a little of my foolishness, and indeed, suffer me.

² For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy. For I have prepared you for one husband; to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

³ Yet I fear, however, that just as the serpent tricked Eve through his subtlety, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

⁴ For if someone comes, preaching another Jesus whom we have not preached - or if you receive another spirit whom you have not received, or another gospel which you have not received - you might well tolerate him.

⁵ For I suppose that I am not inferior to the very chief Apostles.

⁶ And though I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge. And among you we have made ourselves clearly understood in all things.

⁷ Have I committed an offense because I abased myself, that you might be exalted; and because I freely preached to you the Gospel of God?

⁸ I robbed other churches, taking wages from them to do you service.

⁹ And when I was present with you, and had need, I was not a hindrance to anyone. For that which I was lacking, the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied. And in all things, I have myself from being burdensome to you, and will keep doing so.

¹⁰ As the truth of Christ is in me, this rejoicing shall not be taken from me in the regions of Achaia.

¹¹ Why? Because I do not love you? God knows.

¹² But what I do I will do so that I may cut off the opportunity of those who desire the opportunity to be found like us in that of which they boast.

¹³ For such false apostles are deceitful workers and transform themselves into the Apostles of Christ.

¹⁴ And it is no wonder; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

¹⁵ Therefore, it is no great thing for his ministers to transform themselves, as though they were the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.