Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

30 Unto the end, a psalm for David, in an ecstasy.

² In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded: deliver me in thy justice.

³ Bow down thy ear to me: make haste to deliver me. Be thou unto me a God, a protector, and a house of refuge, to save me.

⁴ For thou art my strength and my refuge; and for thy name's sake thou wilt lead me, and nourish me.

⁵ Thou wilt bring me out of this snare, which they have hidden for me: for thou art my protector.

⁶ Into thy hands I commend my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.

⁷ Thou hast hated them that regard vanities, to no purpose. But I have hoped in the Lord:

⁸ I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy. For thou hast regarded my humility, thou hast saved my soul out of distresses.

⁹ And thou hast not shut me up in the hands of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a spacious place.

¹⁰ Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am afflicted: my eye is troubled with wrath, my soul, and my belly:

¹¹ For my life is wasted with grief: and my years in sighs. My strength is weakened through poverty and my bones are disturbed.

¹² I am become a reproach among all my enemies, and very much to my neighbours; and a fear to my acquaintance. They that saw me without fled from me.

¹³ I am forgotten as one dead from the heart. I am become as a vessel that is destroyed.

¹⁴ For I have heard the blame of many that dwell round about. While they assembled together against me, they consulted to take away my life.

¹⁵ But I have put my trust in thee, O Lord: I said: Thou art my God.

¹⁶ My lots are in thy hands. Deliver me out of the hands of my enemies; and from them that persecute me.

¹⁷ Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; save me in thy mercy.

¹⁸ Let me not be confounded, O Lord, for I have called upon thee. Let the wicked be ashamed, and be brought down to hell.

¹⁹ Let deceitful lips be made dumb. Which speak iniquity against the just, with pride and abuse.

²⁰ O how great is the multitude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which thou hast hidden for them that fear thee! Which thou hast wrought for them that hope in thee, in the sight of the sons of men.

²¹ Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy face, from the disturbance of men. Thou shalt protect them in thy tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues.

²² Blessed be the Lord, for he hath shewn his wonderful mercy to me in a fortified city.

²³ But I said in the excess of my mind: I am cast away from before thy eyes. Therefore thou hast heard the voice of my prayer, when I cried to thee.

²⁴ O love the Lord, all ye his saints: for the Lord will require truth, and will repay them abundantly that act proudly.

²⁵ Do ye manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, all ye that hope in the Lord.

2 Aleph. How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Sion in his wrath! how hath he cast down from heaven to the earth the glorious one of Israel, and hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger!

² Beth. The Lord hath cast down headlong, and hath not spared, all that was beautiful in Jacob: he hath destroyed in his wrath the strong holds of the virgin of Juda, and brought them down to the ground: he hath made the kingdom unclean, and the princes thereof.

³ Ghimel. He hath broken in his fierce anger all the horn of Israel: he hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: and he hath kindled in Jacob as it were a flaming fire devouring round about.

⁴ Daleth. He hath bent his bow as an enemy, he hath fixed his right hand as an adversary: and he hath killed all that was fair to behold in the tabernacle of the daughter of Sion, he hath poured out his indignation like fire.

⁵ He. The Lord is become as an enemy: he hath cast down Israel headlong, he hath overthrown all the walls thereof: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath multiplied in the daughter of Juda the afflicted, both men and women.

⁶ Vau. And he hath destroyed his tent as a garden, he hath thrown down his tabernacle: the Lord hath caused feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Sion: and hath delivered up king and priest to reproach, and to the indignation of his wrath.

⁷ Zain. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath cursed his sanctuary: he hath delivered the walls of the towers thereof into the hand of the enemy: they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.

⁸ Heth. The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Sion: he hath stretched out his line, and hath not withdrawn his hand from destroying: and the bulwark hath mourned, and the wall hath been destroyed together.

⁹ Teth. Her gates are sunk into the ground: he hath destroyed, and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more, and her prophets have found no vision from the Lord.

¹⁰ Jod. The ancients of the daughter of Sion sit upon the ground, they have held their peace: they have sprinkled their heads with dust, they are girded with haircloth, the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

¹¹ Caph. My eyes have failed with weeping, my bowels are troubled: my liver is poured out upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, when the children, and the sucklings, fainted away in the streets of the city.

¹² Lamed. They said to their mothers: Where is corn and wine? when they fainted away as the wounded in the streets of the city: when they breathed out their souls in the bosoms of their mothers.

8 Now we make known unto you, brethren, the grace of God, that hath been given in the churches of Macedonia.

² That in much experience of tribulation, they have had abundance of joy; and their very deep poverty hath abounded unto the riches of their simplicity.

³ For according to their power (I bear them witness), and beyond their power, they were willing.

⁴ With much entreaty begging of us the grace and communication of the ministry that is done toward the saints.

⁵ And not as we hoped, but they gave their own selves first to the Lord, then to us by the will of God:

⁶ Insomuch, that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so also he would finish among you this same grace.

⁷ That as in all things you abound in faith, and word, and knowledge, and all carefulness; moreover also in your charity towards us, so in this grace also you may abound.