Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
88 O LORD, God of My Salvation, I cry day and night before You.
2 Let my prayer enter into Your presence. Incline Your ear to my cry.
3 For my soul is filled with evils and my life draws near to the grave.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; and am as a man without strength,
5 Free among the dead, like the fatally wounded laying in the grave when You remember no more; and they are cut off from Your hand.
6 You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deep.
7 Your indignation lies upon me; and You have troubled me with all Your waves. Selah.
8 You have put away my acquaintances far from me and made me to be abhorred by them. I am shut up and cannot get out.
9 My eye is sorrowful through my affliction. LORD, I call daily upon You. I stretch out my hands to You.
10 Will You show a miracle to the dead? Or shall the dead rise and praise You? Selah.
11 Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or Your faithfulness in destruction?
12 Shall Your wondrous works be known in the dark; and Your righteousness in the land of oblivion?
13 But to You I have cried, O LORD, and my prayer shall come before You early.
14 LORD, why do You reject my soul and hide Your face from me?
15 I am afflicted and at the point of death. From youth I have doubted, suffering Your terrors.
16 Your indignations go over me and Your fear has cut me off.
17 They came all around me daily like water and encircled me altogether.
18 You have put away my lovers and friends from me. My acquaintances hid themselves. A Psalm to give instruction, of Ethan the Ezrahite
21 And the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, ‘Let no one be defiled by the dead among his people,
2 ‘except for his kinsman who are near to him: his mother or his father or his son or his daughter or his brother
3 ‘or his virgin sister who is near to him and who had not had a husband. For her he may lament.
4 ‘He shall not lament for the Prince among his people, to pollute himself.
5 ‘They shall not make bald places upon their head, nor shave off the locks of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
6 ‘They shall be holy to their God and not pollute the Name of their God. For the sacrifices of the LORD, made by fire, and the bread of their God they offer. Therefore, they shall be holy.
7 ‘They shall not take a whore to wife, or one polluted. Nor shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband. For such a one is holy to his God.
8 ‘Therefore, you shall sanctify him. For he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you. For I, the LORD, Who sanctifies you, am Holy.
9 ‘If a priest’s daughter falls to play the whore, she pollutes her father. She shall be burnt with fire.
10 ‘Also, the High Priest among his brothers (upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and who is consecrated to put on the garments) shall neither uncover his head nor tear his clothes.
11 ‘Nor shall he go near any dead body, nor make himself unclean by his father or by his mother.
12 ‘Nor shall he go out of the Sanctuary, nor pollute the Holy Place of his God. For the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him. I am the LORD.
13 ‘Also, he shall take a virgin for his wife.
14 ‘A widow, or a divorced woman, or a polluted woman, or a harlot, these he shall not marry. But he shall take a virgin of his own people for a wife.
15 ‘Nor shall he defile his seed among his people. For I am the LORD, Who sanctifies him.’”
16 And thanks be to God, Who had put in the heart of Titus the same care for you.
17 Because he accepted the exhortation. Yea, he was so careful, that of his own accord he went to you.
18 And we have also sent with him the brother, whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the Churches.
19 And not only so but was also chosen by the churches to be a fellow traveler concerning this grace that is ministered by us, to the glory of the same Lord, and the declaration of your eager mind.
20 And so avoiding this: that no one should blame us in this abundance that is ministered by us,
21 providing for honest things, not only before the Lord, but also before man.
22 And we have sent with them our brother, whom we have often proved to be diligent in many things, but who is now much more diligent because of the great confidence in you.
23 And if anyone asks about Titus, he is my partner and helper concerning you; or of our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ.
24 Therefore, show toward them, and before the churches, the proof of your love, and of the rejoicing that we have on your behalf.
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