Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹ A psalm, a song for the dedication of the Temple, of David.
² I will exalt You, Adonai,
for You have lifted me up,
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
³ Adonai my God, I cried to You for help,
and You healed me.
⁴ Adonai, You brought my soul up from Sheol.
You kept me alive, so I would not go down to the Pit.
⁵ Sing praise to Adonai, His faithful ones,
and praise His holy name.
⁶ For His anger lasts for only a moment,
    His favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may stay for the night,
    but joy comes in the morning.
⁷ When I felt secure, I said:
“I will never be shaken.”
⁸ Adonai, in Your favor
You made my mountain stand strong.
When You hid Your face,
I was terrified.
⁹ To You, Adonai, I called,
and to my Lord I made my plea:
¹⁰ “What gain is there in my blood,
    in my going down to the Pit?
    Will the dust praise You?
    Will it declare Your truth?
¹¹ Hear, Adonai, and be gracious to me.
    Adonai, be my help.”

2 How my Lord has clouded over
the daughter of Zion in His anger!
He hurled down the splendor of Israel
    from heaven to earth.
He has not remembered His footstool
    in the day of His anger.
² My Lord has mercilessly swallowed up
    all the dwellings of Jacob.
He threw down the strongholds
    of the daughter of Judah in His fury.
He knocked to the ground and humiliated
    the kingdom and its princes.
³ In fierce anger He has cut off
    every horn of Israel.
He has withdrawn His right hand
    from before the enemy.
He blazed against Jacob like raging fire,
    devouring everything around.
⁴ He bent His bow like an enemy,
    set His right hand like a foe,
and killed all those pleasant to the eye.
In the tent of the daughter of Zion
    He has poured out His wrath like fire.
⁵ My Lord is like an enemy.
        He has swallowed up Israel.
    He swallowed up all her citadels,
        destroyed her fortifications
    and multiplied mourning and moaning
        for the daughter of Judah.
⁶ Like the garden He laid waste His dwelling,
    destroyed His appointed meeting place.
Adonai has caused moed and Shabbat
    to be forgotten in Zion.
In the indignation of His anger
    He spurned king and kohen.
⁷ The Lord rejected His altar,
    despised His Sanctuary.
He has delivered the walls of her citadels
        into the hand of the enemy.
They raised a shout in the house of Adonai
    as if it were the day of a moed.
⁸ Adonai resolved to destroy
    the wall of the daughter of Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line.
    He did not withdraw His hand from destroying.
He caused rampart and wall to lament—
    together they languished away.
⁹ Her gates sank into the ground.
    Her bars He destroyed and shattered.
Her king and princes are among nations.
    There is no more Torah.
Also her prophets find
    no vision from Adonai.
¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion
    sit upon the ground in silence.
They threw dust on their heads
    and girded themselves with sackcloth.
The maidens of Jerusalem
    have bowed their heads to the ground.
¹¹ My eyes are filled with tears.
    My stomach is in torment.
My heart^[a] is poured out on the ground
    over the destruction of the daughter of my people—
as young children and infants
    languish in the city squares.
¹² They say to their mothers,
    “Where is grain and wine?”
as they faint like a wounded soldier
    in the city squares,
as their lives ebb away
    in their mothers’ bosom.